All in the Family
by m klindt
Summary: It all started at a party where Napoleon and Illya meet up with a family trying togetting into THRUSH and now they must protect the ones they care for.  Part of my Lexi series
1. Chapter 1

All in the Family Affair

The MFU boys aren't mine, but I like to borrow them for a mission or two. Thank you to all of my friends that let me use their names for my made up characters and my proof readers. This is part of my "Lexi" series.

Chapter 1

Napoleon walked into his office the next morning looking a little worse than wear. He'd really enjoyed the party last night even if Illya and Lexi weren't there for very long after the meal was served. He had danced with several wonderful, rich, and very available ladies at the party which his attendance had been a reward after Lexi's first mission with UNCLE. Several of the women at this charity event had given him their phone numbers. There even was one very lovely lady who boldly gave him her room key which he decided not to turn down.

His eyes were red and dry from the lack of sleep and his unruly tongue felt like a thick steak while it kept sticking to the roof of his mouth. The headache that was growing behind his eyes began to pound like a big brass drum with every little noise.

Napoleon hadn't even bothered to go home before coming into work. He didn't have enough time to go across town and had already plan to shower at headquarters. With his tuxedo jacket folded over his arm, he made the short walk from UNCLE headquarters' back entrance to his office.

He was in his office long enough to grab a change of clothes, his toiletries, and a couple of aspirin for his aching skull before he headed off to the locker room to attempt to drown his hangover away. As he opened a drawer in his desk, he noticed a small box with a note on top of his desk blotter.

After grabbing the brown, glass jar and closing the desk drawer, Napoleon put the pill bottle down and picked up the envelope. The handwriting that spelled out his name was in delicate letters and then he got a whiff of perfume that was undoubtedly one of most Monica "Lexi" Lane's intoxicating formulas. When he turned the envelope over, there was lipstick in the shape of a kiss in bright red.

He brought the letter closer to his face and inhaled deeply, hoping that the perfume would ease his alcohol-induced migraine, but it didn't help him very much. His head still pounded and his mouth was dry as dirt when he remembered what Lexi had worn last night.

That was when her lab partner, George Thompson, had spilled the beans at the party about Lexi going to survival school before she had a chance to tell Illya. He and his blond cohort had just gotten back from a mission two hours prior to the party. Both Illya and Lexi were late for the party due to different work issues.

Ignoring his brutal hangover as much as he could, Napoleon opened the envelope, pulled out the sheet, and unfolded the letter.

_My Dear Sweet Napoleon,_

_Knowing that you would not be back from your enjoyment after the party last night to see me off this morning, I have a favor to ask. Illya has been getting too soft and needs some help toughening up! Push him around, send him to the gym, and give him the most loathsome assignments there are. Tell him that I put you up to it just to make him extra grumpy for me. Please keep him well fed though, so that he'll be in shape for me when I get home. I promise to pay you back by becoming friends with your future girlfriend when I get back and then we all can spend a weekend together, my treat. Or should I say Christina Roth's treat._

_Always,_

_ Lexi _

Napoleon frowned at the letter, but then winced in pain as it hurt to move his scalp because of his splitting headache. He shook his head slowly and sighed heavily while he pressed his thumb and index fingers pinch the bridge of his nose and then rub the end of his nose. He had to laugh, because of what she was asking of him would mean in their little games Illya and he played with each other.

Illya would already be irritable by her abrupt departure for survival school and be hard to work with even if she was asking for this favor or not, but this was her way to add fuel to their hidden passionate fire that burns between them as they were often more separate than together.

It also meant that both Lexi and Illya knew who he should date, even though he hadn't met her yet, and now Lexi must have known how he felt about her. He couldn't bring himself around to say it out loud, let alone admit it to himself that he had a crush on his partner's longtime girlfriend. That thought alone didn't sit very well with him, because of the embarrassment of not being able to hide his emotions from either one of them, but Illya knew him better than anyone and now, apparently, so did Lexi.

"This is just another game to you two!" Napoleon harshly spat out to no one, put the letter down, and roughly opened the box to reveal a snow globe that had scenes of the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty in it. In front of this were the words "I love New York!" in big bold letters.

Napoleon wasn't in the mood to play this game Illya had started last night about whom he should fall in love with and where he can find her. This morning, a swell of nausea threatening to erupt from his gut as he angrily palmed the snow globe, threw open his bottom desk drawer, and dropped it hard enough in it to almost break it.

Napoleon grabbed two aspirin, dry swallowed them, pick up his clothes, shower kit, and ran to the locker room. He was hoping to make it there before that bile in his stomach as he raced along the corridor.

Illya walked into Napoleon's office and collapsed on his usual chair. He'd thrown back his head and leaned so far back that he almost fell out of it.

"Tired?" Napoleon asked pleasantly, briefly looked up from his report. He'd decided to play it cool with Illya. His headache was better, but not his sour attitude.

"Exhausted," Illya stretched way back in the chair again, almost touching the floor behind him with his fingers and then brought his body up to a sitting position. "We missed you this morning at breakfast. Mark and April were heading out as well; back to England to follow a lead for Mr. Waverly. Where were you?"

"I was enjoying the company of a lovely lady from the party. Lexi knew that I wasn't going to be there. She sent me this note." Napoleon handed Illya the letter and watched him read it.

First, Illya grimaced, but then smiled as he quietly chuckled to himself. He brought the note up to his face and took in the scent of the perfume, closing his eyes, remembering a certain memory. Then, he slowly opened his eyes, looked at Napoleon, cleared his throat, and tossed the note on the desk.

"I told you she is always causing trouble. You're not going to honor her requests are you? You're my partner, not hers. "

"I haven't decided yet." Napoleon smirked and brought the snow globe out of his desk drawer to place it in front of Illya on the desk top. "Maybe, I could be persuaded not to grant her favors if you give me more information on this."

"You realize that is blackmail?" Illya laughed, picking up the globe and shook it before setting it back down to watch the snow fly in the water.

"Yes, I do." Napoleon started to reach for the snow globe when the phone rang and he skillfully picked up the phone handle instead. "Solo here, yes, sir. He's right here. We'll be right up."

"Waverly?" Illya asked as he picked up the snow globe again to shake it and place it down again before he stood up, grabbed his coat that he had slung over another chair. Napoleon put the phone down, gracefully got up from the desk, grabbed his own coat, and followed Illya out of his office.

"Ah, Mr. Solo and Mr. Kuryakin come in and sit down." Waverly waved them to the circular table while he turned to the screen behind him, he placed his pipe in him mouth to hold before he pushed a few switches and then set it down in the ashtray. "Does this gentleman look familiar?"

Both of them looked at the man on the wall. He was a dark-haired man of medium build. He had brown eyes were strong and intelligent.

"He must be a business man," Napoleon stated.

"How so, Mr. Solo?" Waverly asked with quiet interest.

"Well, sir," the CEA cleared this throat and straightened up in his chair. "He's dressed in the usual business attire and a top designer at that."

"He looks familiar," Illya said, trying to think where. "Napoleon, do you think it's the person we saw being forcibly taken away at the charity event we were at last night?"

"Yes, I do believe you're right." He nodded and looked closer at the person's face as he tried to remember the crazy shouts from the mad man in the ballroom right before the first course was served.

"I believe that his name is Mr. Delaney," Kuryakin added. "He was physically taken out of the Hillgate High Society Social Club charity event last night at the Waldorf-Astoria right before the caviar appetizer was served. The Clinical Director, a Dr. Heaford, said it was an unexpected reaction to his medication and drinking alcohol."

"You're correct, Mr. Kuryakin." Waverly nodded, tapping the spent tobacco ashes into the tray from his pipe. "His name is Daniel Delaney and he is the CEO and co-founder at one of the biggest computer development companies in the northeast, Guardian. How is it that you two were at this charity event?"

"It was pay back from Illya and Lex… Miss Lane, sir," Napoleon smiled when he said it. "He promised an expensive meal if we successfully completed Miss Lane's first mission here at UNCLE and this event was the prize. Mr. Slate and Miss Dancer were there as well with George Thompson and his very pregnant wife."

"Mr. Kuryakin, I didn't know you could afford such an expensive reward, am I paying you too much?" Waverly looked at the young Russian with a wink on his eye and a raise of his bushy eyebrows in merriment.

"Well, sir…" Illya swallowed, his cheeks reddened ever so slightly. "Miss Lane helped with that part of the bargain. I just offered her funds as an incentive to Mr. Solo."

"I'd a feeling that is what had happened. Bribery can be a very good incentive. " Waverly smiled and then cleared his throat as he continued on to what they were talking about. "Now back to business. The reason I have you two up here is, because a relative of Mr. Delaney is concerned about him. As you say, he was quite publicly taken out of the party last night and sent to Hillgate Hospital and Sanitarium to recover from an adverse reaction to his medications."

"Had he been ill?" The blond asked, following Waverly's train of thought, and turning into his scientific persona.

"You would think so, but according to his close relative, he was on no medication for physical or mental health until this last month. His niece said that all these changes in his mental health have happened just recently, about the same time that Mr. Delaney became a member of the Hillgate High Society Club. It was if they wanted to control him and ultimately his company."

"Do we have any information on the Society Club?" Solo asked.

"The most we can find out at this time is that its club members are personally involved in the administration and running of the hospital and sanitarium. It's a very elite private healthcare facility that many well-to-do families go. A lot of old and new money; a good place for THRUSH to try to recruit financial backers I would hazard a guess."

"Can you tell us more about Mr. Delaney's niece?" Napoleon asked.

"Her name is Caitlin Delaney and Mr. Delaney's sole heir apparent. She said that she was told by her uncle and father that if she was ever in danger to contact me. She called me last night after hearing the news about Mr. Delaney's outburst and internment to Hillgate Sanitarium."

Waverly tugged another switch to put her photograph up on the screen, replacing her Uncle's. She was a lady in her late twenties with a medium athletic build with short strawberry-blond hair in the lasted fashion. Her tan skin showed off her white teeth and alluring green eyes.

"What do we know about her?" Napoleon asked. He like the look of this woman. There was something about her that drew him to her face. He couldn't put his finger on what why he felt that way; it was different than most women he was attracted to. He knew that he would have to meet her.

"Mr. Kuryakin?"

Waverly referred to the blond agent while he started to repack his pipe with tobacco. Napoleon looked at his partner with interest in why he would know this woman and he didn't. Kuryakin in returned looked back at Waverly and purposely ignored Solo's quizzical look.

"Sir, I've read her proposal and the development of a protection program for government information systems that would currently help halt unauthorized access to that organization's computer data base. She's currently Guardian's top representative and salesperson. She has the access to obtain contracts with several governmental departments here in the United States, the United Nations, several National governments, and to UNCLE.

"What she says her company can provide in computer security is very impressive." Illya continued on. "But, it's a costly service due to the ever increasing changes in technology."

"Yes, someone is always building a better way to break into our computer systems." Waverly agreed. "To build a better mouse trap, eh, gentlemen?"

"Sir, even though I didn't meet her personally, I'd have to say that I find her knowledgeable and trustworthy in regards to her concern for her uncle's well fair and the company's. Her background checks out. She graduated from Columbia School of Business and has taken over running Guardian from her father and now, her uncle. Her father, Thomas Delany, was killed in an automobile accident just last year."

"I agree with you, Mr. Kuryakin." Waverly sat back, lit his pipe, and puffed. "That's why I am going to have you two checkout her concerns. I also want to find out if Hillgate Hospital and Sanitarium has been used by THRUSH to kidnap prominent people around New York to do their bidding or if this all is just a coincidence."

"Miss Delaney is planning to arrive at noon. Take her lunch, gentlemen, and find out her feeling about Hillgate Sanitarium. See if someone can go there to visit Mr. Delaney and check his true condition. I'll want a report to your plan of action and any information you have found in the morning. That's all, gentlemen."

"Yes, sir," Solo nodded, he and Kuryakin got up from the table and left Waverly's office.

"So, my smart Russian partner," Napoleon began while he and Illya walked back toward the elevator that led them to their offices two floors below. "Tell me what you know about Miss Delaney."

"Napoleon, I've already told you and Mr. Waverly in his office." Illya said vaguely while overly dramatically shrugged his shoulders and pushed the down button on the gray, metal wall near the bank of elevators. "I was at a computer symposium and saw her demonstration of the data blocker computer program by Guardian, the Pass Key. It was a very impressive presentation."

"No, not what she was selling, but more about her," Napoleon said in exasperation when he looked sideways at him and swore he caught the blonde's lopsided smile. "You know it's a good thing that you have Lexi brain washed in believing that she's in love with you, because all you ever think about are gadgets, explosives, and computers."

"It's not true." Illya acted as if his pride had been hurt. "You have it all wrong."

"I do?" Napoleon asked, the elevator doors opened and they walked out.

"Yes, I think of explosives, gadgets, and then computers. Your order isn't correct."

"I beg your pardon." Napoleon stopped and nodded a mock apology to his amused partner. "My, you are in high spirits today. I hope you got enough attention last night to keep you in this mood for the next twelve weeks?"

"Last night and this morning, thank you, but I wouldn't count on it if I were you."

"One can only hope." Napoleon sighed when they reached his office; they sat at the desk, pulled out a tablet and began to jot down notes to begin gathering information for their new mission. Illya couldn't help it, but picked up the snow globe up again to shake it. It helped him think to be distracted by having something in his hands that he could play with.

"We've about an hour before Miss Delaney arrives. I'll call Records and Research to give us what they have on Hillgate Hospital and Sanitarium, Daniel Delaney, Caitlin Delaney, and the any newspaper articles on the comings and goings of the social elite that are registered members of the Hillgate High Society Social Club."

"I also think that we should compare that list to all those that might be known as THRUSH agents," Illya said idly he traced the welded joint of the snow globe with his index finger.

He was lost in careful thought, but not of what was going on in the office. He was trying to remember the look on Daniel Delaney's face, what he had cried out as he resisted his pursuers, and who were the people around him trying to calm him down. The last image he focused on was the doctor who explained the outburst.

Clinical Director Andrew Heaford MD appeared to be a man in his early thirties. He wore round, black glasses that perched on a prominent nose. His intelligent blue eyes were piercing and added a sense of power to his ultra-short crew cut that most military men wore even when they were no longer in the service. Illya had a feeling that he had possibly served in the Korean War. Dr. Heaford looked lean and tough; someone who could throw a well-placed punch from a history of military combat training. He was someone to watch.

"What are you thinking?" Napoleon asked finally when Illya put down the snow globe and sat up in his chair. He, himself, put done the pen and leaned back in his own chair.

"I'm thinking that I need to visit Dr. Andrew Heaford's office without an appointment. Sometime, late at night, where there are less distractions. Let's add him to our list as well to check out. I've a feeling about him."

"Dr. Andrew Heaford? Why does that name sound familiar?"

"He is the Clinical Director at Hillgate Hospital and Sanitarium; at least that is what he told us before dinner was served last night while he explained Mr. Delaney's outburst and where he was going to be taken care of."

"Ah, now I remember." Napoleon nodded and picked up the phone to dial the research department. "Hello, Kimberly? Napoleon here, I need your information gathering skills…"


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Caitlin Delaney walked into Del Floria's tailor shop exactly at noon. She tentatively glanced around the small alteration shop, looking her Rolex watch to recheck the time, although she knew exactly what time it was. Always neatly dressed with one of her favorite "one of a kind" purses on her forearm and punctual, she walked up to the tailor.

"Good afternoon, may I help you?" The pleasant older gentleman asked while standing behind the archaic pressing machine and smiled around a smelly cigar.

"Yes, although I'm a bit confused," she smiled back in her best professional domineer. "I was here to meet a Mr. Waverly at noon and was given this address, but I don't understand why all this cloak and dagger?"

"I could tell you, but then we would have to kill you," Napoleon Solo sweetly said from behind her shoulder. A new voice rang out in the tiny shop that had only two people in it a second ago and startled Caitlin. She quickly turned around to meet a man with alluring hazel eyes just slightly above her own eye level.

"Oh! You scared me!"

The stunned woman said in a rush of embarrassment to get a better look at who owned those captivating eyes. His shiny black hair was neatly trimmed and combed in a precise way; gray suit was perfectly altered to fit his medium built body; and he was a few inches taller than her, but his height seemed to fit her quite well. Not too tall or short like some of the other men she's dated. She'd almost be the same height in high heels, great for dancing if he asked. Forcibly, she pushed those thoughts back and concentrate on the matter at hand.

"Scared you? I hardly doubt that, Miss Delaney. Startled maybe, but I have a feeling that it would take a lot to scare you." Napoleon smiled warmly, challenging her to respond to his not so subtle sexual undertones.

"Startled then, I was here to meet Mr. Waverly. Are you him?" Caitlin smiled brighter than she normally did when talking to an unfamiliar man. She was drawn to his handsome looks and the smell of his very expensive cologne, one of her favorite brands yet again.

"Ah, I'm afraid not, but I work for him. My name is Napoleon Solo. Like Mr. Waverly, I work for UNCLE, Miss Delaney." Solo held out his hand, took her hand in his, gave it a small kiss, but didn't let go.

"Do you greet all your prospective clients this way?" Caitlin asked, shifting her eyes to look from his eyes to his hand holding hers and then back to face him in a well practiced manner in playing this game of pursuit and conquest. His hand clasp had just the right strength to show his hidden power, but easy for her to hold with well manicured nails and smooth skin. Another plus in her book of demands for a perspective boyfriend to have for the list was long and precise.

"Only the pretty female ones I do," the dark haired man said in a perfected lady-killer tone, adding yet another level to his challenge for her to resist his charms.

"I have a feeling that you have done this several times before, Mr. Solo." Caitlin smiled back with her best man-catching smile that she had ready for any man who tried to sweet talk her and then she turned back to her serious, business persona. "As much as I would _love _to play this game with you, I'm here because I'm worry about my Uncle Danny."

"Yes, this way." Solo quickly jumped back into his professional UNCLE agent persona just as well, let go of her hand with difficulty, and brought his arm forward to have her lead the way into the curtained dressing room.

"But that is the dressing room?" Caitlin looked at him with suspicious eyes as she stood rooted to the spot when two hisses from the pressing machine echoed out in the background.

"Yes, it is." Solo agreed and hooked his arm around her trim waist to propel her into the dressing room. He pulled the curtain back into place, turned to coat hook, and then opened the thick metal door to let her in.

Caitlin Delaney awkwardly stopped in front of a reception desk in the grey reception area with a secretary sitting behind a wooden desk. The arm pushing her forward halted its pressure on her back, but Napoleon's cologne still lingered.

"What the…" Caitlin started to clear her throat with a rough cough when she noticed a lady sitting at the desk dressed in a plain gray top and skirt with an upside-down triangle attached to her breast pocket and then she glimpsed a familiar slim, blond man standing against the wall slightly behind the receptionist.

Caitlin straightened up, pulled at the tips of her tailored suit jacket, repositioned her handbag, and took a turning step toward the man she remembered from somewhere before.

"Have I met you before?" Caitlin asked quickly, regaining her composure after her clumsy entrance into this crazy place, and held out her hand. If anything, she knew being and acting professional helped her remain calm in the most unprepared situations.

"Not officially met, Miss Delaney, but I did see you at a symposium where you were demonstrating your Pass Key program, Illya Kuryakin." The blond man nodded when he introduced himself.

"Oh yes! You're that doctor person." Caitlin walked up to Kuryakin, not breaking her eye contact with his bright blue eyes and he shook her hand. His strong hand was rough and callused compared to Mr. Solo's although he stood about the same height as her with a strong, confident face. "You were the one with all the questions that kept me and my technicians busy for weeks. They weren't too happy with all the new work we had to put in to make some of those improvements to our program that you'd brought up. I didn't know whether to have you shot, offer you a job, or buy you dinner, Mr. Kuryakin."

"Call me Illya, please." He smirked and eyes twinkled from her compliment. "The only one of those three options I prefer is dinner, but I do believe that we have a lunch to attend to first."

"Illya? Illya Kuryakin? Middle Eastern Europe?" Caitlin smiled wantonly, two very handsome men to choose from, although, Solo was several points ahead with height, smell, and the sexual finesse that she craved, however, she liked to mix it up once in a while.

"Russian."

He nodded, looking past her to Napoleon and gave him a challenging look with a quick shift of his gaze. All of this wasn't lost on Napoleon. He picked up the visitor tag from receptionist's grasp and placed his hand on Caitlin's shoulder to turn her back to him.

"Ignore him, he's a rude and drinks too much, Miss Delaney." Napoleon made a funny face at his partner and then back to her. "Here's the badge you need to wear so you can come with us so we can discuss your situation through those doors."

"It's Caitlin and thank you, Napoleon." Caitlin reminded the man seductively while he clipped the badge to her jacket and then extended his arm to her to lead her into the UNCLE offices with Illya in tow before the metal doors shut behind them.

In the UNCLE headquarters' commissary, Napoleon helped Caitlin with her tray while they picked up their food at the counter and headed to a small conference room down the hall from his office. It had a small table with six swivel chairs around it. They settled down by each other at one end into the padded seats. Illya had retrieved the files from research that he and Solo had requested and then sat down on the other side of Caitlin. He piled the folders in the middle and brought his tray in front of him.

Napoleon could see that Caitlin was used to eating at higher class establishments than their employee cafeteria by the way she picked at her food. He had to smile when she tried a bite of her simple salad and grimaced to its blandness.

Illya didn't seem to notice, clearing his plate of food in record time and pulled the files back towards him as he finished his tea in one gulp. Both Napoleon and Caitlin watched in wonderment while they were trying to eat their marginally editable meals; smiling at each other in amusement.

"Does he always eat like that?" Caitlin asked softly out the corner of her mouth to Napoleon, her napkin in her hand to cover her mouth to wipe away an imaginary crumb. "I don't think it took him even five minutes to eat all that or to breathe."

"This is not half of what he can put away at lunch time," Napoleon said in a loud hushed voice and then he spoke normally to Illya. "What's the matter Illya? Not very hungry today? You haven't even licked you plate clean and it took you longer than usual to eat it."

Illya didn't say anything, but turned to the two and gave them one of his best irritated glares that made most people shiver. He then continued to stack the files into the order that he wanted to read them in.

"Did it just get colder in here?" Caitlin asked, shivering from his ice-blue stare.

"Caitlin," Napoleon said after he finished swallowing the bite of food in him mouth and waved his fork at her. "You have just survived one of Illya's most deadly stares and lived to tell the tale. Frightening, isn't it?"

"It is unnerving. Does it work well?" Caitlin asked Napoleon, because all through their conversation, Illya was intentionally ignoring them.

"Very well," the taller man drew himself closer to her as if he planned to tell her Illya's deepest secrets with a gleeful smile on his face to further frustrate his partner. "He uses that special look to put fear or anger into his enemies."

"Really," Caitlin said with grudging respect and a pursing of her lips.

"Really," Illya said to end their unproductive conversation. "Now, it we've all finished our lunch, I'd like Caitlin to tell us about the death of you father. Tell me about the car accident."

"You don't pull any punches do you, Illya?" Caitlin softly asked.

Caitlin sat back in her chair soberly, crossed her arms around herself, and tucked her legs underneath her chair. She unconsciously closed herself off to the pain of that memory still so fresh in her mind even if it was just over a year ago. Napoleon leaned in even closer and took one of her hands and held it in his. She could smell the resurgence of his cologne and feel the warmth of his body next to her. It was calming to her just to have him nearby.

"It's all right. You can tell us." Napoleon's soft and reassuring voice filtered through her thoughts.

"March fifteenth of last year, my father was on the way back for a dinner date. My mother and father had split up when I turned eighteen; a graduation gift, before I started off to college. It was actually a relief that my mother moved to Europe and married a French man name Raul Egse. He's enough money to support her expensive life style." Caitlin rolled her eyes and shrugged her shoulders in resignation. "I see her once or twice a year. She usually doesn't have much time for me. Never did, not even when I was little."

"Caitlin," Napoleon squeezed her hand to make her look at him, her eyes were slightly glassy with tears started to weld up. "Illya and I understand how you feel about having little or no family. It's important we know so we can find out what's going on with your uncle. We have to know everything about the last year to get a timeline."

She nodded quietly, willed her tears away, and cleared the throat. Somewhere from deep inside, Caitlin knew that she could trust them even though she had just met them. She pushed the food tray away from in front of her, leaned back, and rested her folded hands in her lap.

"Well, anyway, my dad was on a dinner date with a lady he had met at a party at the Hillgate High Society Social Club Hall. It's close to my Dad and Uncle Danny's shared estate near Newport. He didn't tell me her name, because he usually didn't want me to meet his lady friends until he thought it was getting serious."

"That night he was driving her home and the report said he had lost control of his car and hit a culvert. He and his friend were killed instantly when the car burst into flames. The Medical Examiner couldn't identify the lady. Dad was recognized only by his dental records and the license plate on the car. They thought my Dad may have been drunk, but I've never known him to drink more than two beers in an entire evening, even when he was at home."

Caitlin felt another squeeze of her hands by Napoleon, but kept her eyes focused on Illya whose golden blonde head was bent down looking at a file. Watching his blank, unemotional face helped her clear her mind of the sadness rising from deep inside so she could focus on what had happened.

"The rest of that month was a blur: the funeral and who came; what to do with the business, which, between Uncle Danny and I, would run it; and did we even want to keep the estate?"

"Tell me about the wills: your father's, your uncle's, and yours." Illya softly asked, lifting his eyes up to meet hers with their usual blue intensity. "Start with the one your father had before he died."

"Do you think that our money caused the death of my father?"

"Caitlin," Napoleon spoke loud enough for her to turn towards him, his eyes were warm and understanding when quick flash of anger colored her face to the thoughts that rolled around her head for the first time. "We don't know even it that is a possibility yet or just a crazy idea. We have to explore all avenues first to find a starting point. The death of your father was the first traumatic event and that's where we need to start."

"The will is the same one we had since my parents' divorce, right before I finished my first year in college. It stipulated that if anything should happen to him, all assets and companies developed after the divorce settlement were to be divided fifty-fifty between me and Uncle Danny. The preceding will we had before that stated everything was divided equally between my father, Uncle Danny, and me. Even if anyone of us were to marry, the other three would still have their share, but if one of us three died, that percentage was given automatically to the other survivors. No spouse, child, or trust could touch it without all parties agreeing to allow it.

"I'm sure that he told every woman that he was serious about that she would get nothing if he should die or get divorced," Caitlin said, with an arrogant shift of her body. "He was straight forward and brutally honest when it came to family money and me. It toughened me up to face any situation just like any of my Catholic Irish ancestors would've done when they emigrated here. He even taught me how to box…"

Both Napoleon and Illya smiled while watching her properly ball her fists up and assumed the classic boxing first position in the chair and then just as quickly, straightened herself up into a proper lady, smoothing her shirt, crossing her legs at the ankles, gently placed her hands on her lap, and she pleasantly smiled, awaiting Illya's next question.

"How was your father's death on your Uncle Danny?" Napoleon asked the next question, rising to get them all coffee from the pot that was brewing in the corner.

"Hard, like me," Caitlin said and watched him pour coffee into a cup before he handed it to her. "Dad and Uncle Danny were twins and did almost everything together when they were younger; went to the same college, started a business together, and even lived in the same house together. Dad always felt that he needed to watch out for Danny so he wouldn't get hurt and now that is my job."

"Why is that?" Illya asked with peeked interest. "Does he have an impairment?"

"No, he's very intelligent, creative, funny…and sometimes a little flamboyant," Caitlin said with a slight raise of her eyebrows and voice. She swirled her wrist and the snapped her hand down in a very feminine gesture.

"I see." Napoleon nodded in understanding of her uncle's sexual orientation now.

"He really isn't out of the closet, because of his position in the company and his social status in the community. Uncle Danny really is quite sweet and actually has quite a few women after him due of his good looks and money. He dates just enough to appear straight, but is very selective and secretive in whom he gets involved with."

"How did your father's death affect your uncle's relationships?" Napoleon asked, resting his elbow on his chair armrest and his chin in his hand, leaning in close.

"Well, the "special friend" he had before Dad's death left, because of the strain it put on their relationship and I don't know of any other attachments since. I'd be the first one he would tell. I do know that he was finally feeling it was time to try again. About a month ago, he started to go to Hillgate's social club to check out the scene. Male and female, Uncle Danny loves to be in a crowd of people and is very popular.

"About a week ago, he told me a lady friend that was getting a little too close, but he enjoyed her company so much that he was going to tell her the truth. That was one of last times I talked to him outside of the office. It's a rule of ours that only business is discussed at work, not our social interests or sex lives."

"This seems only reasonable if you want to keep your private life, private." Illya added, directing a steady gaze at his partner. Napoleon only smiled and mouthed the words "no way" while Illya dramatically rolled his eyes. "Please Caitlin, continue on."

Caitlin caught the interaction between the two agents and grinned, but didn't comment. "Any way, Uncle Danny and I haven't had a chance to talk. I was gone this last week in Washington D.C. at a sales conference when Dr. Heaford called and said that he had an episode last night."

"Did you know that your uncle was on medications?" Illya asked in a low voice.

"No, I know he wasn't on anything except for vitamins. Dr. Heaford said that he was on some medicine to help with depression that still lingered from Dad's death. I don't remember the name of medicine the doctor said he was on. Well, that was all news to me. Why Uncle Danny wouldn't have told me? We talk about everything, even about his boyfriends. I just don't get it."

"Have you seen Uncle Danny since you were called by Dr. Heaford?" Napoleon asked her with interest when he tried to reassure her.

"No. The doctor said not to visit for a couple of days to give him time to rest. Then I could see for myself that he's resting comfortably. That I had nothing to worry about," Caitlin said in a controlled, terse voice full of irritation for not being able to see her uncle in person to see that he was really okay. "That's when I called Mr. Waverly and he asked me to meet him here at noon. Other than getting two phone calls this morning, everything else has been the same and strangely calm at work."

"What were the phone calls about?" Illya stopped perusing at the files and looked up at her.

"The first one was the Newport Examiner to ask me about my uncle's outburst at the biggest social event of the season. I'm sure that this whole incident has spread like wildfire. Dollars to donuts, tomorrow's society columns will be chuck full of trivial information about him and his irresponsible and very public behavior last night."

"What did you tell them?" Napoleon asked in concern for her business and social standing.

"I lied and said that I agreed with Dr. Heaford. That he was still depressed over his brother's death and having a hard time dealing with it right now, on the anniversary of the accident. After a short rest at the sanitarium and home for medication adjustment, Uncle Danny should be able to continue as acting CEO, but until that time, I would be interim director and limit my participation in sales and development until he's better. Well, some of this is the truth even though I hate to admit it."

"And the second phone call?"

"Oh, the second one was from my dear friend and lawyer, Craig Green of Green, Wyatt, and Schultz. He called me, because he heard that Uncle Danny was taken to Hillgate and wanted to find out if his rights were protected and was going to see if there was a legal issues with his abrupt stay. Whether or not it was a voluntary or court ordered commitment and how long it was going to be for him to rot in that place. Craig's familiar with Uncle Danny's personal and financial affairs also."

"How well do you know this Craig Green?" Illya asked in a serious voice, wondering if he should add his name to their list of people to investigate. "Can you trust him?"

"Very much so, Craig and I've been friends since high school and he became my lawyer the minute he passed his bar exams and began his own firm. I gave him the start up money. " Caitlin stated her conviction in a firm voice of Green's character. "I'm to meet with him at four to see if he's found anything."

"Caitlin, I think it would be wise if I go and stay with you until Illya can check out some of these leads and your home for anything suspicious. Most of this sounds pretty straight forward, but we need to be thorough," Napoleon said out loud as he caught Illya's slight nod of his head and the smallest twist of a smiled, but didn't voice it.

"Is this just an elaborate rue of yours to invite me to dinner and then I come to your place to spend the night, Napoleon?" Caitlin asked in her most alluring voice and twist of pouty lips. She didn't mind spending more time with him at all.

"Yes, I guess it is. Do you mind?" Napoleon's face brightened, flashing his lady-killer smile that he had used before in the tailor shop.

"Illya, are you going to join us?" Caitlin turned her eyes to the blond to see if he would take up her challenge as well.

"I would love to come tonight, Caitlin." Illya focused on his partner who was giving him the look of ultimate distress. "Napoleon frequently needs chaperoning, especially with such an enticing person as you sitting next to him and sharing an elegant meal…"

"Elegant meal! You think canned beef stew is an elegant meal." Napoleon sat up in his chair with a sarcastic look on his face. "How dare you think that I wouldn't be a perfect gentleman to her? You're not afraid of me, are you, Caitlin?"

"Of course not, Napoleon, I can easily take care of myself and you. So far, you've yet to prove to me that you are not just like every other man I've dated."

"But!" Illya spoke up before Napoleon could respond to Caitlin arrogant presumptions. "I have other personal plans tonight and you two will have to play this game without me."

Napoleon looked at his friend in utter shock and was surprised at the choice of words he used.

"I also want to go through your estate and its grounds while you two go to see your lawyer friend." Illya's tone was so matter-of-fact, Napoleon has to think twice if he had actually heard his lightening quick response about playing games. "Napoleon, I'll set up the usual devices there if you plan to spend the night there instead of at your place. It won't take me too long."

"Don't count on that, Illya. The house and lawns are quite extensive if you are used to most the apartments here in New York. I'll call ahead and have the housekeeper and ground's man know that you are coming. I'll give Napoleon a list of people who work at the estate when we go to my office."

"That would be much appreciated, thank you," Illya simply said and smiled knowingly, deciding not to burst Caitlin's bubble to what he and Napoleon have experienced in their service for UNCLE.

"Well, I guess that it's all settled then?" Napoleon asked in almost disappoint in how easily Illya backed down from trying to take this woman away from him in their usual game of one up-man ship, so to speak. Even on some of the last few assignments, Illya still casually dated to keep from being bored while he was away from Lexi, but this time he questioned his intentions for giving up so quickly.

"We'll leave for Caitlin's office before we meet with Mr. Green and then got out to eat while you finish looking over this information and check out her home. Call us when you've finished."

"I will." Illya nodded and they all stood up.

Caitlin and Napoleon both took a moment to check their outfits and tugged at their sleeves in unison. Illya turned to give Caitlin's hand a squeeze, a quick kiss near her wrist, and then warmly smiled. He was drawing her deeply into his vast blue eyes that seemed big as the ocean. She cleared her throat, repositioned her purse on her forearm, trying to break her contact with those magnetic eyes.

As Napoleon motioned for Caitlin to lead the way out of the door, he gave Illya a "_what do you think?_" look before he followed her into the hall to get a mere shrug of Illya's shoulders before his head bent down once again over the files. "Mr. Waverly seems to think there's something there. Call me with the employee names."

"Will do," Napoleon gave him a quick salute, dragging the same hand over his hair to check if it was still in place.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Caitlin and Napoleon were led into Craig Green's law office and into his private conference room by his assistant. The mahogany wood paneling was reflected in the large marble-top, conference table. Black leather chairs aligned the table that stood in front of a mosaic of different shapes windows looking out onto Central Park from the 20th floor in one of the many skyscrapers that circled the lush scenery.

"Cat!"

Craig rose up from his chair at the top of the table to give her a hug. He was a slightly stocky man with stark white blond hair swept up in a fifties-style hairdo that surprised Napoleon. He had on a medium colored brown suit, but he wasn't wearing a tie. His yellow shirt was so bright that Napoleon was glad that Craig had his jacket on or that shirt would've burned his corneas.

"Craig, darling, always the fashion plate," Caitlin smiled as he released her and then roughly pulled Napoleon to her side. "I have someone for you to meet."

Craig looked him up and down with a critical eye and then smiled invitingly. "My, he is a treat, isn't he? A bit of a square in the clothes department, but a nice face and build. Hair's a bit flat, but great eyes. A real keeper Cat."

"Back off friend, this one's mine." Caitlin gave Craig a playful shove on the shoulder, still holding on to Napoleon's hand close to her side. "His name's Napoleon Solo."

"Unique name for a unique specimen of a man and only the finest quality in clothes and cologne I see. That's it, Cat, I'm in love."

"But what would Jones say?" Caitlin only smiled while reminding Craig that he already had someone special.

"He'd say that he's a slice a chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting."

Napoleon didn't think it was possible, but he was blushing. He wasn't used to being so scrutinized by another man like that and then to find out that this man was only testing his reactions to the gay subject at hand.

"It's nice to meet you Craig," Napoleon nodded and smiled a bit more openly.

"Oh, a voice smooth as silk. If only I were gay, I would give you a run for your honey here, Cat."

"Craig, you are gay and he's still not yours, but he does have a partner at work with wonderful blue eyes. I haven't quite figured him out yet." Caitlin shrugged as if she was an authority on this subject.

"Caitlin…" Napoleon started, but then there was a squeeze from her hand on his and he decided that it would be kind of fun to see if she could figure out his partner.

Seeing Illya's face when he found out that Caitlin thought that he might be gay would be priceless, thought Napoleon. Wait until she found out about Lexi, but he wasn't going to tell her anything. It was up to the blond explosives expert they were talking about to tell her. Napoleon just wanted to be there when he did.

"Blue eyes, you say?" Craig's eyes twinkled mischievously.

"Bright blond hair and longer than usual and very mod. The kicker of it all is that he's Russian."

"Blue eyes, blond, and Russian? Cat, I've got to meet your new friend, even if it's just to look at him. I could bring Jones."

"I'll have to think about it, but right now we have to return back to reality and talk about Uncle Danny," Caitlin said, suddenly seriously and she released Napoleon's hand to sit down in one of the chairs.

Napoleon watched Craig change right before his eyes as well. He still smiled, but now it was one of a professional lawyer. "Yes, the time for this pleasurable conversation is for later. Cat, is it okay to talk in front of Mr. Solo? I can have my assistant take you back to the reception area, Napoleon?"

"Yes, well I'm…" Napoleon haltingly tried to explain why he needed to stay, stopping midway in his action of sitting down.

"Oh, he's all right, Craig," Caitlin said with a wave at Napoleon to finish sitting down. "He knows all about what's going on with Uncle Danny. I've hired his firm to help me find out what's going on."

"So, Mr. Solo is a detective." Green nodded, grabbing a pencil and note pad from the pile of supplies kept on the side bar behind him. There was no hint or over exaggerated actions exhibited by him now sitting at the table.

"Yes, now, tell me what you found out. Is Uncle Danny going to be at Hillgate for very long?"

"Well, that is the question we all would like to know," Green stiffly said. "I called the clinical director of Hillgate Sanitarium, a Dr. Heaford, and he said that Daniel Delaney is under a court-ordered commitment of at least two weeks and the rest is to be determined by how he responds to medical and psychological therapies, including medications and electro shock treatments. His case has been assigned to the governing legal group that represents the sanitarium. I've been in contact with a Mr. Jordan Graff, their lawyer."

"Wouldn't that be a conflict of interest to have the sanitarium to represent him?" Solo spoke up, making Caitlin and Green look at the UNCLE agent. They had momentarily forgotten that he was sitting at the table.

"Yes, it would be." Green nodded with another level of respect of Napoleon's intelligence. "That's why I'm planning to work very closely with Mr. Graff to monitor his progress and see to it that Daniel gets out of that place as soon as possible for his own sake and ours."

"Do you know anything about this Mr. Graff?" Napoleon asked. He'd already given Illya an extensive list of people who worked at Caitlin's house; he would call in this lead himself when he had the chance.

"As a matter-of-fact, Mr. Graff is here in this office. He arrived just shortly before you two do. I told him of our meeting and I wanted to talk with Cat here, before I introduced him to her," Craig said with a sly smile and gave Caitlin a wink, flicked a switch, and a voice responded.

"Sir?"

"Have Mr. Graff come into the office."

"Yes, sir," the assistant's voice confirmed the request.

Craig Green stood up, went to the wet bar, and picked up a glass and a carafe filled with water. He walked back to stand by Caitlin, set it down the crystal and began to fill it up. "You'll like the look of this man, Cat. Quite good handsome, cool, and smooth as the glass you're drinking from, reminds me of a high priced lawyer. I would've thought of him for you until you brought your detective friend here with you. He fits you better."

Caitlin looked up at Craig, startled, but then smiled, shifting her gaze to Napoleon and blushed slightly. All Napoleon could do was stare blankly at the two of them. He was speechless to what to say. It was as if Craig was giving her and them his approval and permission to see each other. Then, the wildly dressed man cleared his throat noisily and nodded to the door to alert them that it was about to open.

Jordan Graff entered the room; refined and confident until he saw who was sitting by Miss Delaney. Napoleon Solo! This unexpected change in events only slowed him down a fraction. He quickly recovered his composure without letting the UNCLE agent know that he knew who he was.

Where there was Solo, Kuryakin was not far behind. This thought brought a smile to his face as he walked to the table, placed his briefcase down beside his chair, and reached forward to extend a hand to Miss Delaney.

"It is good to finally meet Mr. Delaney's family member. I'm sure that Mr. Green has given you my name and why I'm here to meet with you."

"Yes he did, Mr. Graff. This is Mr. Solo, my friend." Caitlin smiled sweetly, but there was something about him that made the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand up. The subtle cruelty behind his eyes frightened her. Sitting back down, she pushed her chair slightly closer to Napoleon's.

Caitlin gave this man a good look over as he shook hands with Napoleon. His hair was black and cut in a typical professional manner with a part off to the left. He had blue eyes that were piercing, but he was hiding them with thick black glasses. He was a tall, well-built man.

Jordan Graff definitely had a lot of what she wanted in a man; he even matched Napoleon in how he dressed and smelled, although, she preferred his cologne to Mr. Graff's.

Caitlin was surprised that she was already comparing other men to Napoleon. She was angry with herself that he was so much in her thoughts and physical being that it was if she was in love with him already, but could she deal with living with his career as a spy?

Napoleon's eyes bore down on Caitlin for a quick second while they waited for Graff to sit down and pull out a file from his brief case. Thinking he knew the struggle she was under, Caitlin had to admit she hadn't felt this way about anyone before this and it was unnerving. Shaken by this revelation, she took a quick sip of water to douse her frantic thoughts and concentrated the matter at hand, helping her Uncle Danny.

Solo had caught the slight break in Graff's determined when he entered into the conference room, but put that off as surprise to see someone with Green and Caitlin. What concerned him the most was how Caitlin looked at him after Graft and she shook hands.

Napoleon thought that he had seen her shiver in the smallest way while she glanced at the unfamiliar man. Watching her clear her throat after she took a drink of water to prevent from choking on it, suddenly, Caitlin looked very tired and in deep thought to him.

"Miss Delaney, I know that you're concerned with your uncle, but let me assure you that he is getting the best care." Graff sincerely smiled, opened the notes, and readjusted his black glasses. "His file and chart show that he has been suffering from depression over the abrupt death of your father, Thomas Delaney. This happened about a year ago?"

"Yes, but Uncle Danny wasn't taking any medication, at least not that I know of. I just don't understand how things could have changed so quickly for him to get that upset to act out. He's very socially minded. He would never act like he did, especially at the biggest charity event of the season..."

"That's where the problem lays, Miss Delaney. Daniel Delaney was on medication for the last month. We've records of his appointments with a psychiatrist throughout the last six weeks. His doctor stated that he was concerned for his health and he was becoming a threat to himself and others. Last night was the final push to get him committed to Hillgate involuntarily. The judge was at the charity event and immediately signed the paperwork after he was secured and taken to a safe place."

"That was quick and efficient process to get a court order for that length of commitment." Solo stated with uneasy concern. "Do you have his physical and psychological evaluations with you, Mr. Graff?"

"Yes, I do. A complete exam was done this morning and plans for treatment were added to the court order by the judge around noon today. Miss Delaney, we want to have your uncle treated as quickly as possible so he can continue on with running your company.

"We, at Hillgate, only want the best for our patients and families. Many of our clients are very influential people in the business district. Discretion is always a top priority of ours. That is why we provide legal services to all our patients."

"Yes, Mr. Graff." Green agreed as he eyed him suspiciously. "However, as we all know, most of your hospital's clients have established law firms that are fully capable of handling commitment orders."

"Yes, you are right, Mr. Green." Graff smiled darkly. "That is why I'm handing his file over to you and Miss Delaney. I just handled the preliminary work and will act as a contact person at Hillgate Hospital and Sanitarium along with Dr. Heaford."

Everyone at the table looked at Graff with surprise in how easily he turned over the information and file. "Of course you still realize, Miss Delaney that we'll still be monitoring his condition and will make sure he is fit to leave the sanitarium healthy and functioning. That, you can be sure of."

"Yes, Mr. Graff, thank you." Green acknowledged the threat with those last words the lawyer spoke so elegantly.

Mr. Graft went over to Caitlin, took her hand in both of his, and held it softly while he smiled.

"Miss Delaney, I hope to see you again under better circumstances. Hopefully, with your uncle's release and his return back home to you in a very short time."

"Yes, thank you," Caitlin said quietly, weakly smiling up at him.

"Good day, Miss Delaney, Mr. Solo, Mr. Green." Graff nodded to Napoleon and Craig before turning to the door and walked out of the office.

"Wait, Mr. Graft," Green followed Graff to the door and out into the reception hall. They exchanged in few words that Solo couldn't hear and he saw them shake hands, and then Green shut the door. He walked back to Napoleon and Caitlin with a determined matter.

"Oh, Cat, we are going to have to watch that one." Craig sighed, flopping down in his chair. He took off glasses, threw them on the table, and leaned back to rub his eyes. "He's new in town from California, but already up on his game. I'm sure that I will have to play hard ball with that guy just allow you to see Danny, mark my words. Maybe you could use your girlish charms on him, Cat? He's not my type."

"No, Craig, I'm too tired to try right now. All I want to do is to have a simple meal and stay in for the night."

"And Mr. Solo is going to help you with that?" Craig smiled and Napoleon gave him a knowing wink, leaning his elbow on the chair's armrest while he played with his ear.

"Ah, that has yet to be determined," Caitlin said with a groan, leaned back in her chair, and started to swivel around in a big circle.

"Well, dear heart," Craig sighed and he started turn in his own chair towards Caitlin, knocking hers to glide away from the marble table. "It's time for me to go back to work and see my other clients. Believe me, I would rather play chair bumper cars with you, Cat, but I have to earn enough to pay you back some day. I'll have my assistant make a copy of this file and have it at your office in the morning."

"Yes, I need to go too." She stood up from her chair when it stopped spinning, straightened her jacket, and grabbed her bag. Napoleon quietly had gotten up from his chair at the same time, ready to go. He walked over to Craig and shook his hand.

"Nice to meet you Mr. Green," he said smiling. "It's been real interesting and a pleasure to meet you."

"I bet you say that to all your clients' gay friends."

"I'll see you later, Craig." Napoleon laughed and thumped the man on the back. He wasn't a bit nervous of being around him and others of different sexual orientation.

"Off with you two." Green waved them out of the conference room as he picked up the file and began to scan through it.

Caitlin and Napoleon had just finished their meal and enjoying some Espresso when his jacket began to beep. Napoleon quickly put his hand into his pocket and silenced the communicator's insistent chirp with practiced skill.

"I think that I'd better take this call by the telephones. Will you excuse me?" Napoleon asked Caitlin. She smiled, nodded, and put down her cup on the saucer.

"Of course," she said while playing with her napkin. "Tell Illya that he missed a wonderful meal."

"I will. He'll be sorry. You should see him eat his weight in pasta. He's gotten us kicked out of here a couple of times," Napoleon said smoothly and placed his own napkin by his plate. He gracefully stood up, placed his hand softly on her shoulder, and then walked passed her to the pay phone by the bathrooms.

Caitlin watched his back while he moved to the other side of the restaurant and then looked around the room to see if anyone had noticed that he had left the table. A few people looked up, but from his passing by their table as oppose to any specific interest.

She smirked as her own reaction. It was as if she now was more aware of her surroundings and who might be lurking in the shadows; spy games! Caitlin thought she was going crazy. First to fall for this Napoleon person with just one look and now to think that someone maybe plotting against her family, but for what; their money, their company, secrets of their client's data bases?

Those last thoughts sobered her up quickly. She hoped that all of this was just an overreaction to her uncle's depression and her being upset that he couldn't talk to her about it. Caitlin silently sighed, tried to relax, and reason with herself.

"Napoleon and Illya will be there for me no matter what," A strong voice inside of her firmly said. Caitlin attempted to swallow down the fear and nervousness that she was feeling. All there was now was a short lived sense of calm before a storm for her while she took another sip of her coffee and waited for Napoleon to return to the table.

Napoleon picked up the phone receiver the same time that he pulled his pen communicator out of his suit and leaned against the paneled wall the pay phone was attached to.

"Open channel D, Illya. Perfect timing as always," Napoleon said lightly with a touch of smugness. "We just had finished eating and no, I'm not bringing you a doggie bag."

"How does Caitlin like Leonardo's?" Illya's voice remained bland, ignoring his partners jab.

"How did you know we were here?' He asked in mock surprise.

"Napoleon," a tired voice sighed. "It's Wednesday, veal parmesan is the special and it's your favorite. Need I say more?"

"No you don't. I'm just glad you don't work for THRUSH and know where I like to eat. How did it go finding out about Hillgate Hospital and Sanitarium?" A smile and his casual posture he was portraying turned into a straight-back professional when they started to talk business.

"Nothing too unusual, no one from the society club, the hospital, or the sanitarium is known to be associated with our feathered friends. Quite the popular and well regarded psychiatric facility they have. I'll go tomorrow night to check out Dr. Heaford's office and files."

"Sounds like a good plan. What about Caitlin's place?" Solo asked, turned around to see her look around the room, and catching her eyes on him. She smiled brightly when he gave her the "_one more minute_" signal before he'd be done.

"There's validity to her story. I took some of the junior agents with me this afternoon to sweep her house and grounds. She wasn't kidding about the size. The monster of a house sits on five acres; we found at least ten monitoring devices that were mostly located in the house. Some in the garage and patio by the pool, but there's something odd about them."

"Odd?" Napoleon interest perked even further. "Why would you say that?"

"Because, they're not the typical THRUSH bugs, they look more like one would see from the military, but handmade. Like I said, it's most interesting. I tried to dust some for prints and found none." Napoleon could hear his partner's excitement at the mystery he couldn't solve right away.

"In that case, I think that Caitlin will stay with me tonight at my place. We can check out her office and try to see Daniel Delaney in the morning."

"At least I know that I'll be getting some sleep tonight."

"See you in the morning, Sleeping Beauty, Solo out." Napoleon laughed, but he wasn't going to admit that he was just as tried to Illya or Caitlin.

Napoleon turned off his communicator, placed it in his coat pocket, and then put the phone back on its hook before he walked back to Caitlin and the table. He was trying to think how he was going to tell her what Illya had found out and get her to agree to stay with him for the night.

"So?" Caitlin started right in as soon as Napoleon sat down. "How is Illya?"

"Oh, fine." Solo made a great show of placing his napkin across his lap.

"And?" Caitlin gave him a look of mild irritation that made him smile and told her that Illya was fine before she really got upset.

"And…I'm not telling you here, way too public. We need to go someplace more…secluded." Napoleon tried not to make it sound like he wanted her to come him just to get her into his bed, but that wasn't too far from the truth.

"Napoleon!" She said in a sharp, harsh voice. "Are you trying to take me to your apartment?"

"Well, yes, but not in the sense in the way your thinking, honest!" His eyes searching hers to begging her to understand, because what he had to say to her needed to be done in a private place that was secured from those who might be listening in to their conversation.

"Then, I think we had better get going, before I lose my nerve," Caitlin said softly. Being with him was exactly what she needed to feel safe right now. She knew that she could trust him to be a gentleman until he told her what was going on. The rest of the time it didn't matter if he was a gentleman or not and she hoped that he wouldn't be.

Shocked in her response, Napoleon didn't say a word, paid the bill, and they took a taxi to his place. He held her hand whenever possible, but nothing more. He was beginning to understand Illya's need to be in constant contact with Lexi whenever possible when they were together in trusted company.

Illya walked into Lexi's apartment and shut off the preset alarms. He hadn't realized how tired he was until he looked around the living room, kitchen and the small mess of dishes they had created early this morning. He stopped by the table to set his keys and gun down with a small clang and scuffing.

Lexi and he had spent last night and this morning here after the Roth charity event. Precious time together making love and talking; something they don't seem to get to do much of. Then he took off his jacket, gun holster, and slung it on the nearest chair back.

Even though Lexi now lived permanently in New York and worked at UNCLE, they saw each other about the same amount of time as before. At least, Illya sighed in reflection, picking up the empty vodka bottle and turned over the upside down shot glasses scattered on the coffee table, she lived closer to him and he felt it was a bit safer for both of them.

He eyed the couch and smiled when he thought of their first tryst of the night. That one was frantic and quick. A way to cool the burning passion they felt for each other when he had seen her in that stunning black dress at the party. They hadn't bothered with clothes after that. The rest of the night was spent getting to know each other again after a long time apart, touching and holding one another, not letting go until it was time to leave in this morning.

Illya shook his head and sighed, this time apart was going to be harder on him than he wanted to admit or think about. They had other times when it was months at a time where they didn't see each other, but usually those feelings of longing didn't start until after the first few weeks for him. That's when he would start to look for someone to keep him busy both physically and emotionally.

He kept his relationships with other women light and tried to make sure the lady knew that it wasn't a permanent relationship. Some of the ladies didn't appreciate this arrangement and there were some hurt feelings, but that is just the way it was. Illya tried not to date from the bevy of beauties at work for that reason. He didn't know how Napoleon did it. Lexi came first, just like he had promised his father.

"Soon," Illya whispered to himself out loud as he started to pick up the plates and silverware off the table to fill the sink before he started the water flowing. He was looking forward to the day when they could stay in the same place, see each other every day, and actually get married, but could he handle that? Shaking his head at those future plans, he put dish soap into the water, and watches it swirl into the water before foaming.

The committed Section Two agent hated washing dishes, but he'd promised Lexi that he would clean up if she showered with him before they left. It didn't take much convincing on his part.

As Illya rinsed out the last glass, he shook it out vigorously, placed it on a dish towel he had put on the counter, and opened the fridge. Scrounging around the cool shelves, the blond man pulled out the makings of a simple cold cut sandwich and the jar of dill pickles.

With his meal made and a cup of warmed up tea from this morning in his hand, Illya plopped down on the couch and picked up a book. He had 12 weeks to clean up the apartment and was enjoying the peace and quiet.

Before Illya had walked into Lexi's apartment this evening, he'd called Napoleon to tell him that he finished his report from the information he gathered about the sanitarium and the listening devices. He was glad it was decided that she would stay at Napoleon's place.

He had to smile when he thought of his dark haired partner. Caitlin was a perfect match for Napoleon; those two used their overstated egos and humor to deal with stressful and dangerous situations. He hoped that Napoleon's roaming eye would slow down enough to see how tough and resilient she was. Those were good qualities to have if you were in a long-term relationship with an UNCLE agent, just like Waverly's wife.

Illya had met Waverly's wife a few times, but only in the most secured places. She was an independent, smart, older lady who was extremely knowledgeable of what her husband does and continued as an extension of his right hand on the home front. Although not officially in UNCLE, she got and deserved every agent's respect. It was a role that he could see Caitlin take on when Napoleon took Waverly's place if he survived long enough to retire from Section Two.

Illya sighed as he thought about his own grand plan for the future if he survived as well. He was more content than Napoleon would be to run Section Eight's labs or become an instructor. He'd support Napoleon in any capacity he required. He didn't need to be the head of UNCLE to prove his own abilities, but he would accept the position if duty called for it.

Illya's conditioning and rough childhood created the need not to think of personal desires over the collective good. What he desired was to continue to work in Section Two, work in labs, and take care of Lexi. So they can look out for each other, no matter what happened in their lives.

"Right now, I have all I desire to do is…" Illya said sleepily as he was just about to drift off to dreamland when he heard a very loud cat meow and padded pawing at the bedroom's window that lead out to the fire escape.

A trigger for the alarm was set in every door, window, and the fire escape release went off. A soft blue light was flashing, because of the cat's desperate actions to get in could be seen in every room. If it wasn't shut off in ten seconds, a low pulsing sound would begin and the bed would shake.

Half-awake from the alarm, Illya walked over to the shut off switch and then went to the window to look at the persistent tom cat in tired frustration. "Not tonight, Napoleon. Lexi's not here to feed you and I'm tired."

But the cat didn't care if the man was tired or that Lexi was not at home, he was hungry and knew that there was food to be had. He kept meowing and purred loud enough to shake the window pane, trying to get Illya to stroke his body through the glass.

"Selfish tom cat," Illya grumbled with a small grimace on his lips, unlocked the window sash, and let the fat, yellow, tiger-striped cat in. He left it open a few inches. "You're just like your name sake."

The cat ignored Illya's grousing and proceeded to bounce to the floor, curl himself around his human's legs, and then strolled out into the kitchen. Skillfully, the large cat jumped onto the counter and patiently waited for Illya to catch up.

Illya decided to leave the window open so Napoleon could leave after he was feed. Lexi had frowned and then laughed at him naming the arrogant stray after his partner. The name fit this tom to a tee and she laughed, especially after Lexi had feed Napoleon, because he would stay around only long enough to circle their legs, stroke their hands a few times with his head as if he was making love to them, and then took his leave with a deep, throaty purr.

Illya dutifully fed the cat sardines from the small stash of cans in the cupboard and then went back to the couch, tucked his gun in one of the cushions near his head, and drowsily he waited for the cat to leave. Instead the damn cat decided to curl up next to the tired agent after a full body stretch of pure cat satisfaction. Illya was too tired to protest or get up to shut the open window as a cool breeze blew through curtains around.

While drifting off to sleep, he thought there would be little risk of discovery. No one had followed him, no one knew where current Lexi's apartment was, except for Napoleon and Waverly, and the cat was wild enough to alert him to a stranger coming to the door.

"Direct line to Mother G," A tall, dark figure talked into a walkie-talkie. He was unseen on the dark outside stairwell in the building across from Lexi's building. He moved the binoculars back up to his eyes as he waited.

"Mother G here. Is she finally home?" A strong female voice responded.

"No, Ma'am, but her boyfriend is here." The dark man stated, watching the blond man walk around the apartment and then lowered the goggles while he talked. The uninvited visitor had been in Lexi's apartment during the day to search it. Surprised to found a security system, he figured how to shut it off without too much difficulty. The man was quite impressed by the whole setup. "He knows about the alarms. Quite ingenious, I just don't know why it's needed. It's not quite military issue, but it's equal in effectiveness."

"There's an easy reason for that," the older lady's voice said confidently. "When you're rich, you can afford and need the best security system. He must know her very well and maybe just as rich; another good test subject to demonstrate to our new employers my techniques in conditioning the average person into giving us their money and cooperation."

"That's the problem; I couldn't find any information on Miss Roth's whereabouts. I can only assume that she's been out of the country. She must be a free spirit, staying in different hotels or with friends. I've found no permanent address to speak of and her CEO won't tell me yet.

"Christina Roth has been nowhere to be found in this country, until she showed up last night at the party where you spotted her for the first time in a year on this guy's arm. I wonder if she's the paranoid type. Maybe she's been living under another name to protect herself?" The dark man analyzed out loud.

"Could be, but we know that this Kuryakin person knows her and he can help us find her. What can you tell me about him?"

"Not much. I spent most of my day looking for her. They spent the night and early morning here, got dressed, and left the apartment. Kuryakin was carrying a suitcase. I thought it was his and they left about six in the morning. I followed them to a coffee shop near downtown where they met up with two of people from the party, Dancer and Slate I think, and then I lost them from there. It was if they disappeared. They're quite clever."

"I'm not paying you to lose our prey! I lost her a year ago; she should've been married to one of you by now and I want control of her trust fund." Mother G's voice became bitter while trying to control her white hot anger and then cleared her voice as the communicator went silent for a moment.

"I know my job," the dark man firmly stated through gritted teeth, forcing back his own angry response to her lack of faith in him. "I've this feeling that he must be a real pro handling their security. Most of your pampered targets aren't this secretive about their safety; they want to be noticed and flaunt their money. There's something peculiar about her. She's like a ghost."

"Well, I want that ghost! Bring me the boyfriend, maybe he can find her for us and then train him to work for the sanitarium."

"It will have to be in the kitchen or housekeeping, he doesn't look big or strong enough to be an orderly."

"I don't care what happens to him afterwards, I want to find Roth. How are you going to get into that apartment and past the security?"

"Whoa, wait!" The dark man perked up and looked through his binoculars again. "An alarm went off. He shut it off. Now, why would he do that? Oh, there's a cat on the fire escape. He let the cat in and left the window open a crack. Maybe he's not as smart after all. That's how I'll gain access. I saw the wiring connected to the metal framework of the fire escape. I'll cut it while the system is off. The street noise from a block away should cover my actions. I've some knock out gas with me. After that, I'll bring him back with me."

"I will expect you back here in less than two hours. Mother G out."

"Heaford out," The Clinical Director of the Hillgate Sanitarium said, turned off his walkie-talkie, stood up, checked his equipment, and covered his head with his black stocking hat. Crossing the nearly deserted street to other building, he began his extracurricular work for Mother G.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

He didn't know what woke him up, but as the world started to come into focus for Napoleon Solo, he felt a warm body next to him. Slowly, opening his eyes to see the early light of dawn hit his apartment windows and throws a soft yellow glow into the living room. He was lying on his couch in the clothes he wore yesterday and the lamp on the side table still on. Then he looked down to whom he was sharing his couch.

Caitlin was curled up on her side, using his right bicep for a pillow while her arms were fused together from the elbows to her hands and resting in front of her as if she was praying. Napoleon looked down at her and smiled. She looked like an angel with her reddish-blond hair pulled away from her face, black smudged mascara around her eyes, half of her makeup rubbed off onto his white shirt while the opposite side of her face was in almost in perfect condition.

She stirred slightly while he watched her breathe for a few minutes before a small smile tugged at her soft lips. She knew that he was watching her and snuggled closer into his side.

Napoleon remembered they'd come back to his apartment and sat on the couch to discuss what Illya had found at her house and to brain storm again about her uncle's outburst. Most of what Caitlin told him was the same about being away on several business trips and out of the picture. The rest of the time was spent talking about their childhoods, dreams, and demanding jobs.

"You must have been tired last night." Caitlin's hypnotic voice drifted teasingly through his thoughts.

"Why do you say that?" Napoleon asked with interest. He shifted his body slightly to get a better look at her. Seeing that her eyes were still closed, he couldn't help himself and began to trace his finger around her hairline, ear, and jaw.

"Because, you fell asleep in mid-sentence while trying to tell me about your childhood home and how your parents died," Caitlin yawned and stretched.

"Well, I think that you were just as tired as I was. I vaguely remember someone telling me to scoot over to share my couch with. I know you that would've been more comfortable on the bed instead." Napoleon smirked to challenge her. Theirs was a mutual attraction that neither one of them had to explain, because it came from deep inside.

Napoleon was surprised how much better he slept last night just by having Caitlin here and they weren't even inmate yet. He didn't feel that way with his other dates. With them, he slept lighter and more than ready for them to leave in the morning. Rarely did he have the same girl over two nights in a row. He hoped that she would break that routine.

"Napoleon, what are you thinking?" Caitlin inquired, savoring his light touch.

"Oh, that you are quickly becoming more important to me than I have ever felt with anyone before," he grimaced when those frightening words tumbled out before he could stop them. She was here to ask for UNCLE's help, not to fall in love with. What could he offer her except worry, pain and possible death? How could he do that to her?

"Me too, Napoleon," Caitlin said smiling with her eyes still closed and then turned to meet his eyes with hers as she slowly opened them. Seemingly willing to accept anything to be right where she was. "Me too."

Napoleon leaned forward and they tenderly kissed for the first time. He drew her up onto a full body hug that lasted several minutes. His heart raced and he could feel hers beating in unison, but they would have to wait for more.

"As much as I would like to stay like this with you all day, I think we need to get up, get dressed, and go to your office."

"Yes, we need to take care of Uncle Danny first."

Caitlin sat up on the edge of the couch with her back to him with a sigh. She ran her hands through her hair and rubbed one of her eyes. Feeling the sticky thick crustiness of forgotten makeup around her eyes, she rumbled with frustration when she eyed half her face on Napoleon's shirt sleeve on his stretched out arm and then suddenly gave him a punch in the shoulder as she hopped off the couch to face him.

"Hey! What was that for?" Napoleon asked more in surprise than it actually hurting as he sat up.

"For sitting there and not telling me how bad I look with smeared makeup!" She put her hands on her hips and glared.

"I hadn't noticed," he said softly and then smiled devilishly. "Much. I'll be the gentleman though and let you use the bathroom first to clean up and get rid of those raccoon eyes you've seem to have developed."

"And what a gentleman you are, Mr. Solo." Caitlin bent down to ruffle his hair as she started to walk to the back of the apartment, assuming that's where the bedrooms and bathroom were. "You're a quart low and you had better have clean towels."

Napoleon chuckled, leaping off the couch and headed for the kitchen to make some coffee.

Napoleon and Caitlin had cleaned up and had a simple breakfast of coffee and bagels before heading to Caitlin's office so she could change her clothes and check on her lawyer, Craig Green's progress to get her and Napoleon to see Uncle Danny while he checked out her office for listening devices and call Illya.

After finding only two such devices, Napoleon looked them over. He had to agree with Illya in the fact they weren't the usual bugs for THRUSH to use and the person who made them was an expert; possibly military. Napoleon glanced towards Caitlin's personal office bathroom with increased concern as he deactivated them, grabbed his silver pen communicator, and opened a channel to Illya.

"Open channel D, Illya old chum."

Silence

"Open channel, UNCLE headquarters," Napoleon looked at his watch to see it was ten o'clock. Illya should've easily been at work or connected to, he thought with growing irritation.

"Communications," A familiar female voice rang through.

"Ginger, how are you?"

"Fine, Napoleon, when are we going out again?"

"Ah, that will have to be on hold for now." He stammered, remembering their last date and how much he enjoyed their time together. Right now, all he could do was to blush, because he didn't know if there would be a second. "Has Mr. Kuryakin checked in or at headquarters? He's not answering his communicator. Also, could you do me another favor and look up what we have on a Mr. Jordan Graff, a lawyer from California working for Hillgate."

"No, that sly fox isn't here. I'll try to hail him for you and let you know if he reports in. He hasn't called in that I can tell, but he isn't listed as being active in a mission since last night after six either. I'll report back on the bio of Mr. Graff in half an hour."

"Thanks, Sweetheart. Solo out." Napoleon smiled. He knew that Ginger was one of those ladies at UNCLE headquarters who was secretly trying to get Illya interested in them. She went as far as seduce him to get to the stubborn blond. That had been fine with Napoleon; she's a gorgeous woman and a great kisser.

"Sweetheart?" Caitlin had walked in at the end of his conversation with Ginger with one raised eyebrow and an inquiring look on her face that made him smile even bigger.

"Ah, it's the operator at UNCLE. She's sort of sweet on me. It's her way to get to Illya. I've dated her once, because Illya had no interest." He shrugged, thinking that Lexi must've been in town at that time and he knew that Illya tried to keep his sexual "diversions" out and away from work.

"Why do I think that you've had a lot of dates with many beautiful women and not because of Illya? And, don't bring your partner into this. I know you can defend your honor just fine Napoleon Solo." Both her eyebrows rose up her forehead waiting for an explanation and crossing her arms over her chest.

"I refuse to answer this form of questioning in regards that it could incriminate me." Solo took her hands in his. "I won't hold your past indiscretions against you, if you don't hold mine against me. I'd love to hear the stories honest, but not to hurt you, to protect each other from the past. I could tell a few stories myself, just not right now."

"Deal, because I have to admit that I have quite a list of previous suitors myself. I've played it safe if you're wondering as I hope you have?"

"I'll show you my medical records if you show me yours, but it will have to wait." They agreed with a handshake and then Napoleon became serious. "Illya hasn't checked in at work and I can't get a hold of him on the communicator. I've got to check out one place before we can go to see your Uncle Danny. I want you to stay here..."

"Oh, no you don't! I'm going with you," Caitlin said firmly and took the deactivated listening device he offered her, inspected it, not realizing its importance, and then set down on her desk. "I'll stay back and do exactly what you tell me too. It'll save time. I've had a message from Craig that we can visit this afternoon at one. Let me help, please? If this is about me and my company, I couldn't have that on my conscious if Uncle Danny or Illya got hurt.

"I can't put you in danger. This is part of Illya and I's job. He's no shrinking flower. I don't know if I could handle seeing you hurt either," Napoleon said softly and half turned away from her with his nervous hands balled up in his pockets, trying to shake his lowered head to rid it of the image that flashed in his mind.

"Napoleon," Caitlin said just as low and sternly while she turned him back to her and put his tense, square jaw in her smooth, determined hands. "All things in life have risks. I would rather go with you to see what risks I'm taking from now on before we lose too much later. I need to know what I face, what you face, because of your work, and what the future will holds for us to be together. I'm not going to be ignorant with who you are. That's where the risk is."

"Why do I feel that I can't deny you anything?" He sighed, searching each other's eyes. "When this is done and you are truly safe, we'll have to have a difficult talk about what it means to be with an UNCLE agent. It won't be easy. There are…requirements that you'd have to be willing to do."

"I would have to think about it?" Caitlin mimicked him with a roll up her eyes slightly to the left and puckered her lips for a quick second. "Okay, I thought about it. I'm willing to see what the job entails, but you too, will have requirements to meet to be in my life as well. Mine might be harder on you than yours on me."

"I agree." Napoleon laughed as they quickly hugged. "Now, I…we need to go to an apartment that is owned by a friend of Illya's. I think that's where he was last night instead of his own place, but we'll have to check his place if I'm wrong."

"Let me grab my purse and I'm ready to go." Caitlin hurried to her desk and grabbed the handle of a small leather purse and slung it on her shoulder.

"I'll call Mr. Waverly from the apartment. Let's get a cab."

They opened the door to Caitlin's office and hustled down to the street to hail a taxi.

The rush of a swift, pounding headache and the gurgling of his last meal woke up Illya in a panic. He struggled to quickly stand up and run to the bathroom, but suddenly realized that he couldn't move his upper body.

With no other choice, he swallowed down the burning bile and pickle juice that tickled the back of his throat with a grimace of pain and disgust peppering his face as he cautiously opened his eyes.

Illya was laying flat on his stomach on a metal spring cot with his head buried in a plain rock, hard pillow wet with his own drool. Moving his head side-to-side, while trying to move his crossed arms from in front of him, but they were numb from immobility.

His legs were mercifully free. One thing to his advantage Illya thought; turning his body to one side, gracefully pulled his knees to his chest, and rocked up to a sitting position.

His head swam while he leaned back against the cold, white-washed cement wall and momentarily waited for his stomach to catch up.

"Definitely, not the usual THRUSH drugs," Illya murmured to himself, finally being able to focus his eyes enough to somewhat look around. His body accepted the usual blinding headache, but this new knock-out gas had a nausea factor that had hit him hard. "Wonderful, a new drug to get to know and love."

Gazing around the small cell, Illya saw the basics; plain room, single cot, heavy locked door with a single, square, wired- glass window and food slot. What he did have that wasn't usually in the cell with him was a chair, a metal cot with springs, a mirror, a sink, and toilet. The ceiling held only a single florescent light that was out of reach even with the chair, and there was no camera or exposed wiring.

Sighing in resignation, he finally looked down to see why he couldn't move his arms and wasn't surprised to see that he was in a straight jacket. Shifting his position had awakened his arm and shoulder muscles to make them sing to him with the quivering and aching pain of pins and needles running up and down them.

Waiting to let his arms to relax, Illya noticed that he was stripped down to his undershirt and in pajama bottoms. Why do they always have to take my pants? He thought as he looked at the stretch-knit slippers with rubber bottoms on his feet. He swallowed another rise of food and bile that threatened to erupt from the pit of his stomach.

Illya tried to think of something else that could distract him from the nausea. That was when he noticed what looked like an identification band on his left ankle. Drawing his knee up again, he used the thin, thread-bare blanket to help turn the thin, plastic strip so he could try to read it. The band was embossed with Hillgate Hospital and Sanitarium on it with John Doe #105 written on the cardboard insert.

The third volcanic eruption couldn't be stopped. Illya quickly jumped to his feet, took a single shaky step and fell to his knees right in front of steel toilet. Once done emptying his aching stomach, he fell into a sitting position, leaned against the wall panting and felt the sweat trickle down his forehead in short-lived relief.

_Clank! _

The noise of the door lock startled the UNCLE agent. Illya blinked away the tears in his eyes, cleared his throat, and prepared himself to who might come through. The door swung open to let in the bright light from the hallway. Shadows of three figures crowded the door and then walked into the small room.

The first one in was an older nurse with a powerful figure poured into a corset that puckered her uniform around the buttons. She had her stark white hair pulled into a tight bun under her overly starched nurse's hat. Her beady eyes were piercing through her black horn-rimmed glass that she had worn since the fifties Illya guessed. Her lips formed a straight line in a perpetual "no funny business" that no one ever thought to cross without potentially losing their life.

The two others were guerilla sized orderlies that stood just at the edge of the door and ready for action. Illya looked up at the group with blank blue eyes while he sized up who he was up against. He didn't know who this nurse was and flicked his eyes toward her name tag that only read Mother G.

"Mr. Kuryakin." Mother G. addressed him with stern pleasantness. "How are we doing right now?"

Kuryakin barely acknowledged Mother G's question and looked her straight in the eye.

"I know how you're feeling," Mother G said without breaking eye contact as she leaned over Kuryakin menacingly, twirling a hypo in her fingers. "You're nauseous, have a blinding headache, and weak, but I can take that all away for you with just this one little injection."

Kuryakin blinked and swallowed another rise of bile. He shifted his eyes from Mother G to the door, but didn't say a word.

"No my dear, you won't be able to leave here without my help. The drug we've given you last for another full four hours. You can either sit or lay here suffering or you can tell me what I want to know and this all can go away. You listen to me, Mr. Kuryakin. Be a good boy and I promise to take care of you like your sweet mother does."

"Mother G," Kuryakin rasped between pants, trying to wet his dry lips. "Are you related to Mother Fear? She was also concerned in how my mother was."

"And how is your mother? I wouldn't doubt that she is very worried about you. I could be a mother to you too if you just help me dear boy." Her smile sent shivers down his spine. "All you have to do is tell me what I want to know."

"What am I suppose to know?" Kuryakin asked in a soft, hoarse voice.

"Why where your little girlfriend is, Miss Christina Roth, young man."

"My girlfriend?"

That was about all Kuryakin could say at that moment. He could no longer stop the tide of hot liquid churning in his stomach from reaching the top of his throat and tried to jumped to his knees to reach the toilet. He wouldn't have made it if Mother G hadn't grabbed the back of the straight jacket and roughly pulled him up with surprising strength.

After nothing more would come out from Illya's retching, she pushed him back down to the floor with a thud.

"Now, where is Christina Roth?"

"I…don't…know…" Kuryakin panted out and began to shiver, so weak that he was about to faint, His current perception of this room and business at hand of answering questions for Mother G were dimming quickly.

"Oh, yes you do know, you naughty boy!" Mother G started to raise her voice and placed her hands on her hips to tower over him. "Tell me now! Where is she now? Is she going under another name?"

Her shrill voice made Kuryakin's head even pound harder and felt like it was going to split in two. All he had the strength to do was to pass out with his mind whirling with thoughts of Lexi and how she looked in that black dress as one of her alters, Christina Roth.

"Damn! I must have given him too much. Now I'll have to let Dr. Heaford have his chance like I agreed to. You two!" Mother G straightened up and turned to the orderlies and shouted in frustration with clinched teeth and fists; wanting to hit or kick the prone blond man. "Get him on that bed. If you hear him wake up again, call my son. If he can't get him to talk, then it's my other son's turn. Have Trixie give him this hypo. I don't want to have him making a mess in Dr. Heaford's office when he calls for him"

"Yes, Mother G."

Mother G left the room in a snit. The orderlies had no problem picking Kuryakin up and tossing him back on to the cot, as if not weighing more than a child's ragdoll. They shut and lock the door behind them and sighed in boredom. They were hoping for a little more action from the slight man than they got at the moment.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

After what seemed like only a few seconds to Illya, the lock on the door clicked and the door flew open. Very weak from vomiting and still dizzy, he decided not to move as he listened to the soft, sneakered footsteps enter the room. The person placed a tray on the chair and walked over to stand next to the cot.

After a few seconds of quiet, Illya opened his eye to see the bottom half of a white uniform skirt in his blurred line of vision. Sheer white tights covered the slim dark brown legs connected to two feet standing in white nurse's shoes.

All this white attire was blinding to Illya. His headache began to pound even more when he rolled on his side to get a better look.

The young lady smiled down at him with her arms at her sides. She was a nice looking black woman with a patient look on her face. Her hair was short and styled in the lasted mod style. Luminous brown eye with golden flecks danced out at him.

Illya looked at her suspiciously while he swallowed a mouthful of burning stomach juices, not having enough energy to get off the bed to reach the toilet.

"Hi, my name is Trixie." Her light voice fortunately didn't add to his monstrous headache. "If you listen to what I say, I can give you this shot that I'm told will make you feel better, because Mr. John Doe, number one oh five, you look like shit. So, if you play nice? I'll play nice, but if you don't, I'll send in the thug brothers in here to hold you down and they love a good fight."

Illya blinked his eyes at her New York toughness and he smiled weakly at her pretty face. "I will behave."

"Good. Turn back over." She twisted her hand in a circle to indicate that he should lie back onto his stomach so she could have access to his backside, but he had other ideas.

"Nurse..." Illya started, trying to keep his voice sounding calm and not trembling.

"No nurse, just Trixie. Miss Teresa Brenner, if you don't do what I tell you. Now, turn."

"Miss Brenner, if you would take off this straight jacket, I can…."

"Oh, no you don't, Jonny Doe. I can't trust you that far yet. It's in the butt, take it or leave it!" Trixie started to walk away from the bed towards the door. "I guess that I have to get the boys…"

"No, please!" Illya sighed and turned back on his stomach. "The butt will be fine. Please don't get the boys."

"That's a good guy, Jonny Doe." She smiled in triumph when grabbed an alcohol wipe from her tray, came over to the side of the bed, and tugged at his pajama bottoms to get decent exposure.

Illya felt the cold swipe of cotton and then a stinging jab in his butt. The shot itself wasn't the worse part; it was the burning of the antidote that was pushed into his body. All he could do was to wince and squeeze his eyes shut to prevent from swearing out a stream of words inappropriate to say in front of Trixie. He'd promised to behave while she was in the room after all.

"There, that should help you out." Trixie straightened up, placed the used syringe back on the tray, and stood to regard her unusual patient quietly as she heavily leaned against the door.

A strange warm feeling began to run through him. Illya's body functions were slowly starting to return back to his control. He didn't feel as weak and his stomach's churning was loosening its knot; not there was anything left in it to work with anyway. Slowly, his head was clearing from the pounding it had been receiving and he let out an audible sigh of relief.

A dark smile crossed his lips, because now he could start to plan for a way out of this place. The UNCLE agent gracefully stretched his body out as much as the straight jacket would allow and rolled up to a sitting position. Illya was about to try and escape from the jacket by first checking to see how tightly the arms were secured in the back with an experimental tug and shift of his hands. This wasn't the first time he was in a straight jacket and probably not the last he thought to himself.

"Well that was impressive." Trixie's voice echoed, surprising Illya that she was still there. Thinking that she'd left the room and served her the look of pure innocence, hoping she couldn't guess what he was planning to do.

"Pardon me, Miss Brenner," Kuryakin said sweetly and cleared his throat. Swallowing the last of the bitter taste in his mouth and smiled warmly at her. "I thought that you had left. I'm feeling much better now. Thank you for helping me, I'm a rather tired and would like to rest…"

"You're not like the other ones who come in here." Trixie was not be put off so easily and chose to stay across the room from Kuryakin while she talked to him. "Do you know your name? Jonny Doe doesn't quite seem to fit you or your accent. You're not acting all that surprised to be in a straight jacket and in a mental hospital. Most people would be screaming and carrying on, but you're not. You are way too calm."

"My name is Illya Kuryakin."

Illya stopped for a second to think if he should tell her who he was and shrugged. She was clever enough to either help him, help Mother G find out who he really was, or think that he's really was crazy. So far, this place didn't seem to be involved with THRUSH, yet. That brought the main question back to the front of his mind, why did they want Lexi?

"Well, Illeeya Kuryackin, if I didn't know better, I'd say that you have a look that my former employer had when he knew that he was about to be cheated by one of his working girls. He too, was slim and wiry.

"Stupid Johns would under-estimated his smarts and strength all the time. I didn't, because if I made him mad, he'd show me "the error of my wicked ways" right across my back side."

"How did you finally get away?" Illya asked and continued his intense blue-eyed gaze on her with new respect for this former street-wise prostitute, intently listening to her rarely told story.

"Old Jethro was shot by a customer during an argument over me and the John won. The mister then took me to Mother G, because he did know what to do with me and the rest is history.

"She trained me to work here as an aid and gave me a place to sleep. Been two years now," Trixie said shrugging. "Mostly, I take care of blue bloods that are used to being looked after, but there's really nothing wrong with them. All they wanted is a little extra attention. Like Mr. Danny in room 6. He's just likes to play with those on the same team or at least he did before they took him to the other ward for treatment."

Kuryakin took in this information with a small nod. Trixie turned her head slightly to the side and half closed her eyes in self reflection, but still didn't take her eyes from him. He hadn't moved or tried to get her to come closer when he heard her loudly sigh.

"I don't know why I'm telling you all this?" Trixie said in tired resignation. "I must need to take a vacation or get another job. This place is getting way out of hand."

"How so?" Kuryakin encouragingly asked with interest.

"Oh, I don't know." She huffed in frustration that danced in her eyes. "Patients are being transferred to a new ward for treatment. And, I don't even know where it is in this place. More and more unidentifiable Johnnies and Janes showing up and running around this joint than I can count, Mother G is personally running this ward, and now you. I'm having a personal conversation about working here with a patient whose chart says that you're a dangerous manic schizophrenic. That you have manic delusions that you're from an Eastern European country, have been kidnapped, and a spy for some fictitious organization called UNCLE. What does UNCLE stand for?"

"United Network of Criminal Law and Enforcement, world peace, and I am Russian."

"A communist, Russian spy working for world peace and living here, in New York City? Okay. That's a good one. So why were you kidnapped and brought here?" Trixie looked at the calm blond man with deep blue eyes in wonderment and then laughed at the hilarity of the situation.

"That I don't know yet, but I don't think it was because of my job. I was asked to betray a friend. That's something I cannot do."

"Betray him for what?" Her interest was piqued. It didn't mean that she believed this slim blond man, but the conversation had caught her attention. He was so serious and never wavered.

"Betray her." The painful looks in his eyes made her swallow nervously, making her question if he was really insane or not.

"I can't do that. I care for her too much." Illya reactively cleared his throat. "For a short time, she was in your former line of work, but was taken away just like you. I wouldn't like to see her back there again or manipulated by others. That, I promised her mother and my father."

"Does she have a name?"

"Yes and Mother G knows it. Christina Roth."

"So why does she want her?"

"I don't know." His tight voice told her he knew more that he willing to tell her.

Trixie scrutinized him for a moment, not knowing if she could believe him or not. This could only be part of his manic fantasy and she was being lead down a phony path. With another sigh of frustration, she looked at her watch and had to deal with the realities of her job.

"As much as I would like to entertain this line of thought with you, it's about time to get you something to eat and a good washing. You smell of throw up and sweat."

With that comment, she knocked on the heavy wood door and it swung open to admit two hulking orderlies. "Clay, you and Frank take Mr. John Doe one-oh-five to the showers for a good hose down. I'll have clean clothes for him and a new jacket. You can feed him in the dining hall in one of our special chairs. It should be empty by now. Dr. Heaford wants to see him in half an hour for psychiatric evaluation in his office. Then we can find out just how really crazy he is."

"Thank you for your help, Miss Brenner. I hope to talk to you again in the near future, but I don't think that I'll be allowed to stay in this room or ward after I see Dr. Heaford." Kuryakin nodded to the lady before the two orderlies lumbered up to him with mischievous smiles on their faces as each took an arm and dragged him out of the door.

"All I can say to you is to remember to hold your breath and behave yourself with the boys and Dr. Heaford. Behaving and doing what you are told is the only way out of here. Good luck in the world peace department, comrade," Trixie said smugly and saluted the Russian when they dragged Illya past her and out of the door.

"Da!" Illya remarked in a sarcastic tone that lightly touched her ears, making her laugh out loud with its pitch of black humor.

Napoleon and Caitlin opened to door to Lexi's apartment and peered inside. The Chief Enforcement Agent had his gun drawn while he kept Caitlin right behind him as they walked through the entry way.

Several little lights were blinking in each room. Checking all of the rooms and finding nothing, Napoleon lowered his gun and turned off the alarms which started to pulse with urgency.

With no one in the place, Napoleon holstered his gun and started to look around. The bedroom window was opened a crack; Illya's jacket was on the chair with his communicator in it; and his wallet and keys on the table where he had left them.

The pillow on the couch was leaned to one side and dented to where a head might have lain. Napoleon ran his hands under the cushion and found Illya's gun. Sitting down in frustration on the couch, he looked at the P-38 UNCLE special and pulled out his communicator. Caitlin came to sit down by him.

"Open channel D, Mr. Waverly please," Napoleon said, smoothing his hair down and straightened up to report in.

"Waverly here, Mr. Solo. What have you to report about your mission? Have you found out any information on Mr. Kuryakin whereabouts? What about Mr. Delaney?"

"Well, sir, I am at Agent Lane's apartment where we found Mr. Kuryakin's gun, communicator, wallet, and keys, but no Kuryakin. All the alarms were functioning except for the window in the bedroom by the fire escape, which is still open. I don't see any signs of a struggle or detect any odors, but a knock out gas could easily evaporated by now."

"Do you believe it's connected to what happened to Mr. Delaney?" Solo's boss asked in a strong still voice.

"I don't know yet, sir," Solo said, thinking about his conversation with his partner last night. "I know that Mr. Kuryakin hadn't planned to investigate Hillgate Hospital and Sanitarium until tonight. He and a team did sweep Miss Delaney's house last night and found listening devices, but not THRUSH connected. He was going to look into to who made them today and then visit the sanitarium's offices."

"Yes, his completed report from inspecting Miss Delaney's house and grounds was logged in before he left last night. I haven't had any other communiqués from him since." Solo could hear his boss puffing on his pipe in concentration. "What have you heard from Hillgate regarding Mr. Delaney?"

"We've met with Hillgate's lawyer, Jordan Graff, and have been allowed access to Mr. Delaney's files and the facility had agreed to a visit today at one this afternoon. We're planning to go there after we checked out this place."

"We, Mr. Solo?"

"Ah, Miss Delaney and me, sir." Solo said with a quick look over to Caitlin as she sat quietly listening to the conversation next to him, trying not to distract him. "She insisted on accompanying me here to help find clues. She's willing to help at Hillgate as well, because I don't think that they would let me see him without her."

Solo could just about imagine the amount of smoke that was filling Waverly's inner office, waiting for his response. They could hear him talk to his assistant to get him information on this lawyer person.

"Keep Miss Delaney safe, that's an order Mr. Solo. Keep me updated, Waverly out."

Napoleon closed the channel and looked at Caitlin who was intently staring right back at him.

"Are you ready for all of this," he asked her softly, laying his hand on her thigh lightly.

"Do I have much of a choice? Your friend and my Uncle Danny are in trouble." Caitlin calmly said and placed her hand on his.

"Then it's time to go and see your Uncle Danny." Napoleon got up from the couch, pocketed his communicator, and extended a hand to Caitlin to help her up. "Give me your purse."

"Please." She smiled and handed it over.

"Please and thank you," Napoleon said with a nod, putting Illya's gun and communicating pen in her purse, and zipped it closed. "Yours for safe keeping and could come in handy if you should need it."

"I'll make sure he gets these back." Caitlin agreed only holding them for safe keeping.

Napoleon smiled, tapping her nose with his finger and then gestured for her to precede him out of the apartment and down the stairs.

"Now all we have to do is find a cab."

Kuryakin was glad that Trixie had warned him to hold his breath, because the two bulking orderlies had made it their mission to try and drown him in the shower by pouring buckets of lukewarm soapy water over his head only to be followed by a stream of cold clear water from a hose. He was watched constantly, even in the bathroom as he tried to shave with a dull safety razor with a shaky hand.

Being in the dining hall was not much better. The "special chair" that she had mentioned was a simple armed chair where he was tied to with a sleeveless shirt that had straps attached in the back. The giant mountain of a man named Frank called it poesy or something like that.

Thanks to Mother G's prior administrations, all he could eat was a bit of dry bread with butter to soften it and a few sips of a yellow soup that he hoped was a chicken broth to settle his empty, aching stomach before he was pulled and shoved down the hallway to Dr. Heaford's office.

This part of the sanitarium was professionally decorated to reflect the status of clinical director by the cream colored walls and big urns of tall potted plants that brought a calming feeling to those who enter seeking help here. The simple wood secretary's desk was directly set in front of the doors to the doctor's office. Overstuffed chairs and benches of soft leather were scattered about to give patients a sense privacy and security while they waited.

Big windows brought in the natural light into the room, telling Illya that it was around noon time by the way the shadows of a large fern fell across the granite floors. He looked around the atrium and had to admit that it was an impressive space when he finally set his gaze on to the nurse sitting at the desk.

"Frank. Clay. So, this is Dr. Heaford's twelve o'clock evaluation?" The stern woman in a crisp, white uniform addressed the orderlies before looking up from her desk. When she did, she focused her eyes intently on the blond man in the straightjacket jammed between the two men. "Is he so dangerous that it requires both of you to escort him here?"

Kuryakin didn't let go of the nurse's stare once he had gotten a hold of it. His ice-blue penetrating gaze that he reserved for his worse enemies bore into her with a lethal twitch touched his lips. The nurse shivered, unable to break free from the chilling face of a deadly predator that was ready to strike.

"Dr. Heaford and Mother G ordered it, Peggy," Frank said, not noticing the exchange of looks between the patient and the nurse when she was finally able to break free from his simple control. "I don't see why, he's been no trouble to me and Clay. I was hoping for a little action from this one. It's been a little too quiet around here from me. Is the boss man in?"

"I don't know. He hasn't answered his intercom, but that's not unusual. He may have used his personal entrance to check on his other patients. I was told to leave this John Doe in his office and you two to stand guard of the door. While you two are here, I going to my lunch break. He said that it would be all right for me to take off."

"You hear that, little man? Into his office you go, but remember that we can hear what's going on and if you try anything, we'll come running."

Before Kuryakin could say a word in retort that had came to his mind, he was grabbed again by the men, hauled into Heaford's office, thrown into a chair, and left with a strong bang of the door.

Again, the first thing Illya did was to quietly and quickly look around. The room itself was just as polished and ornate as the waiting room, but with a few more personal touches like a table with an inlayed chess squares and frosted glass pieces arranged to start a game. An invitation?

On the massive, opulent desk, were files laid open for him to see. Another invitation or challenge? Kuryakin wondered if now was the time to give Dr. Heaford and whomever a show of some of his special abilities. Why else would they have left him alone in this office with so many enticements?

With astonishing skill, the Section Two agent pulled his arms up, twisted the inner arm over his head followed by a turn of the outer one, and then he pulled the straight jacket over his head. Throwing the unfashionable suit down on the floor, Illya leaned forward, ran his hands through his damp hair, and then stood up with a soft groan as his stomach growled out in hunger.

He first walked over to the chess table, made an opening move, and then went behind the desk to sit down in the good doctor's chair. The slight man had to stop a minute to check out the chair.

"I wish that I had a chair in my office that was this comfortable." He said to himself and then smiled at comparing his cramped metal chair with a broken wheel and desk to Heaford's. He smirked at the thought to what Napoleon would say if he knew that his partner was lusting over silly office furniture instead of a beautiful woman. It did swivel without squeaking.

The thought of Napoleon and how he was doing in his part of the mission, brought Illya back to looking at the files before him on the desk. The first one to his surprise was on him from the FBI; not the usual THRUSH file of him that he knew all too well. As he leafed through the packet, most of the information was correct, but they were missing several key items of his most life in Russia and the Ukraine. It did mention the resent death of his cousin, Alexana Kuryakin though.

The next few files were of Caitlin and Daniel Delaney. Great care was taken in assessing their house and business in these reports along with pictures on each of them and a list of Caitlin's hobbies and routine. The last file was small, thin, and of Christina Roth. Not information was listed on her personally. What they did have came from her CEO in a transcribed session with Dr. Heaford. The report read as if the man was under hypnosis.

All that was stated was that she let her CEO run the companies, but he couldn't offer up a contact number. She always called him. She had a job as a chemist in the company under the name of Janice Smyth, but that was reported was another dead end, because she didn't exist either except for a bank account to deposit her rather hefty paycheck. A list of all the companies ran by Roth industries were categorized by their impressive net worth.

The last thing on the desk was a manila envelope in which he opened to discover photographs of the party they were at two nights before. Christina a.k.a. Lexi was pictured with her CEO and his wife looking up at the room's decor, them hugging just after he had given her ring and necklace back. Another had them at the charity event hand-in-hand just about to leave the building into the night, but the last picture made him the most concerned. It was of them walking into her apartment building with the street numbers in plain sight.

Putting down the final photo, he knew that Lexi would not be happy with him now knowing that she would have move again so soon, but she would understand. Thoughts of her made him glad that she was safety tucked away at survival school instead of here and in danger. At least all they had to worry about in Caitlin right now, he thought as a door clicked open.

"Dr. Heaford, I presume?" Kuryakin asked quietly without looking up from arranging the files in a more comprehensive manner.

"Dr. Kuryakin." The tall, wiry doctor greeted the man in his chair. "It is an honor to meet you. I have to say that you have impressed me."

"Impressed, how so?" Illya asked and looked up with interest and folded his hands together over the desktop as if he were the psychiatrist and Heaford the patient.

"Well." Heaford cleared his throat and tried to not appear nervous or aware that he was already at a disadvantage by allowing the UNCLE agent to sit in his chair. "When I was first watching you and Miss Roth at the party and in her apartment, I thought that you would be easy to manipulate. Skinny, quiet, and overly devoted to the person you were with to the point of harmful distraction.

"Then, I thought that you may have been a hired gun to protect her and it had gotten personal. The heightened security measures, different identities, and the gun holster I found draped over your coat, but no gun in it. That's when it became much more."

"More?" Kuryakin asked with a calm look on his face encouraging for the doctor to proceed in his reflection.

"Yes, Dr. Kuryakin, I went through your wallet and found you identification card from UNCLE. That's when I became nervous with who I had been ordered to take last night to reach my objective."

"Your objective? Kidnapping is hardly the activity of a well respected psychiatrist. If I didn't know better from the file I have on you, Dr. Heaford, I would've not guessed that you had it in you to abduct me."

"Your file on me?"

"Yes, Andrew Walker Heaford. Who started out with a promising career first as a medic and then trauma surgeon and psychiatrist for the Navy Seals just after the Korean War, but was discharged over a botched mission that left you black listed from any governmental service career that would have you and had to fall back on running Hillgate Hospital and Sanitarium. But now, that isn't the only group you are working for, is it?"

"Like I said, you're very impressive person, Kuryakin," Heaford said, scrutinizing the man further and dropping the doctor part of his name in a show of disrespect that the agent simply blinked at and smiled. "We did acquire a new backer just recently to help us with our endeavors and they sent me another, more complete file on your unique skills, but I don't think that our new friendship with THRUSH will be stopped by you, your partner Mr. Solo, or UNCLE. In fact, you will be a bonus to our little program as we go regionally and then take over the rest of the world."

"We?" Kuryakin raised an eyebrow when Heaford stood up, tossed the THRUSH file of him onto the desk in front of Illya, walked over to the chess board, sat down and played his first move.

"Yes, Mother G and now my brother, who is anxious to meet you by the way, he ran a THRUSH satrapy in California and just recently just got transferred here to help with the family business. It's all in the family you see.

Illya go up from behind the desk, strolled to the other side of the chess board, and sat down across from Heaford. Without hesitating, he picked up a pawn and completed his second move.

"I'm shivering with excitement, but tell me something, Dr. Heaford?" The UNCLE agent asked off handedly, appearing to be concentrating more on the chess game before him than the conversation.

"What, Illya?" Heaford tried to pull the man off balance with an arrogant tone of informality.

"I prefer Mr. Kuryakin. If Miss Roth was so hard to you to find, why try now? What do you want from her?"

"Weren't the files obvious for you?" Heaford scolded Illya for not getting the whole picture, smiled, and arrogantly took his opponent's rook.

"Yes, they were actually, but incomplete. You want to control two, apparently single and vulnerable people, take their companies from them. To use them as your pawns in your little chess game, so to speak, your move."

"Very good, Illya, but we want more than that." Steady eyes regarded Kuryakin as he took Heaford's bishop. "We want to prove to THRUSH that we can control anyone with our latest techniques of hypnosis and pharmaceutical treatment depending on the level of cohesion needed to achieve our goals. The funding from those companies will help considerably. That's what makes in vitally important to find your Miss Roth."

"My, Miss Roth?" Illya's face remained calm when Heaford tried to take his queen, not only in the game, but in real life.

"Yes, my mother wants her as a prize for her mantel, so to speak. She met your girlfriend over a year ago when she started to broker a deal with THRUSH. We were making significant progress with controlling several of our test subjects and now ready for a bigger fish one could say. Miss Roth seemed to have slipped through Mother G's fingers to disappear into the night and that didn't sit well with her."

"Yes, I had my own run in with Mother G. Not a very pleasant experience."

"It's not nice to mess with my mother." Heaford smiled knowingly, waiting for his next turn to finish the chess game with an evil gleam in his eyes. "Now, I need to know where she is, have you bring her here to us, and then we can start your treatment so we can hand you over to our new employers. Nice and neat, don't you think?"

With a quick and decisive stroke, Illya made his move and set back in his chair. "I'm afraid that I can't tell you what you want or be willing to help. Oh, by the way, Dr. Heaford, check mate."

Anger colored the doctor's face as he lost the game just when he was winning a move before. He stared at Illya's passive face whose eyes sparkled in the unspoken triumph the blond man had over him.

Instantly, Heaford balled up his fist, and tried to strike the agent's face while jumping out of his chair. Illya was ready for him and pulled back just far enough to miss the swing.

In a flash, Illya grabbed the doctor's wrist and gave it an expert twist and then he followed through with the forward motion; pinned the doctor onto the chest table under his weight. Game pieces went scattering all over the floor.

"Come now, Dr. Heaford, don't tell me that you don't know how to lose gracefully? I thought that by now you would be an expert. You may have tried to take my queen in this game, but you will not have my…girlfriend as you seem to put it so eloquently." Illya whispered harshly into Heaford's ear and he increased the pressure on his bent back arm. "She's no where you can touch her and I will be leaving…now!"

"I wouldn't be so sure about that, old friend."

Illya felt and heard a gun being pressed into the back of his neck with a click of the safety off. Letting go of the embarrassed and furious Heaford; Kuryakin merely sighed, straightened up, and put his hands over his head. Why did that voice sound familiar?

"You'll change your mind once we get through with you, I promise you that. I almost broke you once, Illya. My brother was given his turn, as was our mother, now it's my turn again after all these years."

"Well, so far the percentages haven't worked in your family's favor. I suggest we all call it quits, I walk out of here, and save you the trouble of trying."

"Oh, very good, Illya," the voice behind him laughed brightly. "How I've missed your comments and challenges. It's just like the olden days. Well, almost. You see Mother G threatened and weakened you for me with her poison. My brother here gave you an idea of what is going on to distract you once we found out that UNCLE was involved with Miss Roth and Miss Delaney, and I'm here to get you to cooperate with us by giving you one of our new mind conditioning treatment once we find out where Miss Roth is."

"It won't work on me. I'll never give you what you want."

"You will, I promise you," the unseen man sneered back.

Kuryakin sighed audibly as he turned around and his eyes grew big in surprise. Illya was speechless for the first time today.

"Illya, do you remember my brother now?" Heaford smugly looked down at the blond agent's back while he put his hand in his pocket to draw something out of it.

"Yes, I do, Dr. Heaford. Jordan Graff, he was my partner in UNCLE Survival School. You got dismissed from UNCLE for unethical practices."

"No, I was kicked out because of you! I wanted to show the instructors I could defeat the number one person in our class and one of the top five agents in the history of UNCLE and I'm going to do it right this time."

"A first for everything," with that last comment, Kuryakin felt a needle poke the back of the neck and his vision darkened before he hit the floor.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Trixie walked into the nurse's station on her ward to get report from the charge nurse to the status of the patients while she was at lunch. It had been an interesting morning with John Doe number one-o-five in room ten. It took her and housekeeping a while to get rid of the smell of vomit from the room. She hated it when Mother G used her homemade concoctions on the patients.

Now, all the pretty, young black girl wanted was a quiet afternoon, get home, and watch her favorite television show. She'd eaten in the lounge with one of her current patients, Danny Delaney. Although, he smiled and talked pleasantly, there was a vacant look about him, trying to remember something lost and he didn't talk of his niece or work. Not like he did prior to staying in that other ward for the last two days.

Trixie shrugged as she wondered why Mr. Danny so interesting to her. He'd been here less than most of her patients and now she'll have some time to get to know him since he was back from treatment. The chart said that he would be here for at least another month; maybe more.

"Hey, Trixie," a nurse called out to her when she turned the corner and interrupted her thoughts. "We have another one. Came in while you were at lunch; a real hottie this one."

"Well, so much for a quiet afternoon. What's his deal?" She said with a loud sigh and picked up the chart while she pulled up a rolling chair to sit down by the counter.

"Oh, he's coming down from a manic episode. Tried breaking into a med room in the main hospital looking for the fun, illegal medications. Either to take or sell; got caught red handed it seems. Very delusional the chart says and is to be sedated at all times until he's transferred out of here either tonight or in the morning. He's just great to look at. Better than the one you took care of this morning. We got the note saying that John Doe's to stay in Dr. Heaford's special ward from now on which is fine with me after all that smell of puke."

Trixie took in all this information in stride while continuing to look over the new patient's slim chart. At least this patient had a name. A Mr. Napoleon Solo and he's due for his tranquilizing shot in ten minutes if the calculations were right.

"Why did the name sound so familiar?" A mumble escaped her lips after she stood up and went to the med room.

"Well, with you, and Clay and Frank back from break, I'm going to lunch. I'm taking a full hour to meet up with the husband in the main cafeteria. He's driving his truck to North Carolina this afternoon and I want to see him off. Everyone else is tucked in their rooms or in the lounge. Mr. Solo is in the restraints room and his shot is ready to go for you. It shouldn't take you more than a few minutes to check up on him every so often to make sure he's snoozing..."

"Not a problem, Carol. Say goodbye to your hubby for me," Trixie said off handedly to her coworker through the closing door of the nurse's station, who was already out the door and around the counter with her coat and purse in her hands. The nurse simply waved her goodbye back and kept going.

"Well, Mr. Solo. It's time to meet you and give you something that will make you dream your afternoon away. Napoleon Solo… Napoleon Solo. Why does that name sound so familiar?"

MFU/MFU

Napoleon Solo had woke up with his eyes unable to focus and his mouth feeling like cotton batting. The first thing he realized was that he couldn't move. He was on some sort of cot with a thin mattress, feeling the metal mesh give around his body. His arms and legs were restrained in padded leather restraints and he tugged on them experimentally before sighing in frustration.

"Caitlin!" His mind shouted out at him. "Where's Caitlin?"

Napoleon snapped his eyes open with a start and tried to look around the room with his vision clearing. It was a padded room with nothing in it, but him; tied down on the cot and a light bulb dangling from a single wire.

Anger filled his mind in how easy it had been for whomever to kidnap him and Caitlin. He had remembered that they had climbed into the back of the cab to go to the Sanitarium and then there was smoke from the cabbie's cigar blown at them as the man turned back for a destination. The rest was a blank.

Looking down, he had been stripped of his clothes. Why do they always take his clothes? Napoleon thought when he noticed an identification band on his wrist next to the wrist restraint and read his name on it.

"Ah, I must be at Hillgate Sanitarium."

The door to Napoleon's room opened up with a loud click of the lock as the med aid come into the room with a tray that had the syringe on it and an alcohol swab.

"Hello Mr. Solo, you're awake. My name is…"

"Trixie, yes I know." Solo beamed up at the lovely woman that he knew from her other line of work. "Good old Trixie Brenner, my love from 38th Street. I haven't seen you for a long time. So, this where you've been hiding yourself, in a mental ward fleecing the rich Johns? Well, you'd certainly have a captive audience."

"Napoleon Solo, baby, those days are long gone for me now. I haven't visited to my usual street corner for over two years. I gave up all rights to it. Someone else must certainly have it now."

"Has it really been that long? Your rival Coco has it now. I exchange pleasantries with her now and then. I must say that she doesn't pull off the stilettos and fishnets like you did." Napoleon lustfully thought to when he saw her last and then pushed it to the back of his mind.

"Napoleon, you can make even a professional blush." Trixie smiled with pieces of her buried past started to emerge. "So Lovely, what did you really do to get put in here and in restraints no less? Did you really try to break into the drug lock up? I always had you pegged for vice cop working downtown. You don't seem like the druggy type."

"I'm not. All of this is a misunderstanding. Revenge for being a cop, I was on the trail to bust the real drug dealers and wound up here by mistake. I was undercover.

"Can you be a sweet heart and help me out of here, Trixie baby?" Napoleon smiled, trying to get her to help him out of the padded restraints. He let her believe that he was a regular cop and not an UNCLE agent.

"I don't know Napoleon. I could get fired if I let you go." She was weighing what she should do. "I agree that a lot of strange things have been going on here lately, but I don't want to get into trouble. Most of the people here are really decent and don't want them to know what I use to do for a living before coming here."

"They wouldn't have to know. All you would have to do is loosen these buckles and leave the door unlocked. I'd do the rest. I've to go find my partner. I think that he's around here somewhere."

"I don't know?" Trixie repeated again and started to wring her hands while pacing around the room. She thought about what he was really asking her to do.

"Trixie please, I have to help the lady who was with me."

"Who was that?"

"Caitlin Delaney. She's Daniel Delaney's niece and I promised to keep her safe. We were coming to see her Uncle Danny. Do you know him?"

"Yes, I do. He's told me about his niece, Caitlin once and how scared he was for her."

She looked at him for a moment and then made a quick decision to help him.

"Napoleon, if I help you get free from this room and get Danny out of Hillgate; will you protect me from Mother G's clutches and find me another place to work? I always thought that you had connections by the way you dressed and treated us girls on the corner."

"I promise you that I will take care of you. Help me out of here and I'll tell you where you can take Mr. Delaney. Once this is all over, I'll even arrange it so that you can go back to school to be a proper nurse if you want instead of an aid. Is it a deal?"

"You have a deal. I have always wanted to go back to school to become a nurse, but I couldn't afford it." Trixie walked over to Solo and started to unloosen the restraints.

"I knew that I could always count on you Trixie my love." Napoleon smiled as he waited for her to unbuckle his arms and legs. "Now, I will give you an address to take Danny while I try to find where they are hiding Caitlin."

"Dr. Heaford has a special ward for some of his patients, but I don't know where it is. All I do know is that most of the patients start off in his office and then they don't come back here until after treatment. I would guess it's around there. It's been recently remodeled,"

Trixie said all that in a quick breath as if she was going to lose her nerve and back down; not quite believing what she is about do. She gave him pen and scratch paper from the pocket of her uniform.

Napoleon quickly scribbled down a phone number and address, handed back the paper and pen, grabbed the syringe from the tray by the cot, rearrange the cover and pillow on the bed to make it look like someone sleeping on their side, and gave her a quick hug.

"I won't forget this Trixie. My partner, Illya and I thank you."

"Did you say your partner's name was Illya?" Trixie stiffened up and asked him in shock when he held her at arm's length.

"Yes, Illya Kuryakin."

"You wouldn't work for a place named UNCLE, would you Napoleon? Work for world peace?" Trixie brought her eyebrow up in astonishment.

"Something like that. Why?" He asked suspiciously.

"Oh, I just met your partner this morning. A manic schizophrenic who believes that he is a Russian living in New York working for UNCLE."

"That would be him, the crazy, smart Russian." Solo smiled warmly, thinking of his friend.

"Now I know I really do need another job. I'm starting to believe and help crazy people escape from a mental hospital. I might as well move in myself," Trixie sighed to herself and Solo gave her shoulders a final squeeze for encouragement.

"After you get Danny out of here, then I'll take you to any mental facility you want to go to."

"Oh! Ha, ha!" Trixie laughed out loud and pointed him to the door. "Go save your friends and I'll meet up with you later. Good luck, Napoleon."

"Good Luck to you to, darling."

With that, Napoleon quietly opened the door, looked up and down the hallway and stealthily crept out into the hallway with no one the wiser at this point. Then Trixie left the door and headed towards Daniel Delaney's room.

MFU/MFU

Illya woke up with a start, looked around enough to see and feel that he was lying on a metal examination table; strapped down with restraints over his feet, legs, and chest. His arms were out on supports perpendicular to his body and secured at the wrists. An intravenous line had been started in his right arm and a saline bag hung near the table dripping every few seconds.

Groaning in frustration to finding himself drugged and restrained yet again when he awoke. At least this time he wasn't nauseous, he thought, but his head started to begin to pound when he moved his eyes back and forth. He lifted them upwards to see a bright and unforgiving procedural overhead light glaring down at him.

The rest of the room looked like a mini surgical suite. X-ray screen on one wall, equipment sitting in the corner, a counter with various unlabeled drawers underneath it, a sink with boxes of gloves, an anesthesia machine, and a tray of surgical instruments.

"Good, you're finally awake, young man." Mother G said from the hallway when she peered into the room

She walked towards him with a tray of syringes in her hands and set it on the counter. Mother G looked the same as the first time he met her; her bright white, overstuffed nurse's dress, starched nurse's cap, and those black horn-rimmed glasses that didn't hide the evilness behind them with her eyes boring into him. "It's such a shame that you will not cooperate with us. This could all go easier if only you would try."

"Most people find me difficult without even trying to get information from me," Kuryakin softly said, tracking her around the room with his eyes.

"Yes, Jordan has told me all about you and what you did to him. That was very unkind of you. The plan for him was to get a job with UNCLE just as Andrew was to get into the FBI after his time in the Navy Seals ended. Now, both of them have no other choice than to join me and THRUSH to achieve our goals. Too bad their fathers weren't more successful in THRUSH to make our working relationship with them easier to obtain."

"Fathers," he suspiciously asked, silently, but intently watching her walk around the room; turning on the anesthesia machine, attaching EKG monitor leads to his bare chest, and bringing the overhead light in closer blinding him even more.

"Oh, yes, I'm on my fourth husband right now. My other husbands' were sloppy and killed for it. It was me who thought of a way to condition people into giving us their money and started the Hillgate High Society Club to fund my plans. My boys just improved upon it. And you, Mr. Kuryakin, are not going to stop me."

"UNCLE knows all about what you are doing here. You will be stopped." His calm sure voice raised barely above a whisper as his body tensed with determined resolve.

"I hardly think that you are in a position to stop us. In fact, once we have the information on Christina Roth whereabouts when my sons break you, I've decided that you will be my new project."

"I'm flattered." Illya let out a well-practiced yawn.

"I'll send you back to UNCLE to destroy it once and for all. You will kill that old goat, Mr. Waverly and blow up UNCLE headquarters here in New York. I hear that you are very handy with explosives." Mother G continued on, ignoring his sarcasm.

"I know why you fit in so well here at the sanitarium, because you and your sons are insane if you think that I'll help you," the blond man stated in the same calm voice as he tried to swallow the dryness in his throat.

"Charming to the last, I see. Jordan said that you were quite colorful in your comments." The stern older lady had stopped what she was doing to lean over him and glare at him, challenging for him to look away.

"I'm glad you think so. I do try," Kuryakin said, lightly with a dark smile, not breaking her eye contact.

"Well, we shall see, young man." Mother G cleared her throat. She was the first to look away. Illya could sense a touch of nervousness in her voice and arrogantly grinned.

Mother G. hotly went to the counter, picked up a syringe filed with an amber fluid and turned back to the supine UNCLE agent. "Shall we begin?"

"I thought that this was a family affair. Wouldn't your sons be upset that you started without them?" The secured agent asked, trying to stall the inevitable.

"Oh, they'll be here. I'm just here to do the prep work and this is the last step." Mother G waved the shot in her hand. "It takes about ten minutes to get its full effect. I think that you'll like this one." She smiled as she took the IV line into her plump hands and injected the medication in. "I'll give you a few minutes to enjoy its effects while I get my boys. Jordan's been looking forward to this for a very long time."

"I'm sure he has." Illya said drily. He was still trying to forget the first time Graft tried to get him to confess he was a traitor for the Soviet Union many years ago at Survival School. A long couple of days in the infirmary may have help him physically, but didn't stop the nightmares that still pop up from time to time.

MFU/MFU

Napoleon Solo stealthily walked down the hallway of a locked ward with a syringe full of tranquilizer in it for his only defense. It didn't help that he was dressed as a patient including an identification band. For all he know it could trace him and set off an alarm if he should leave this ward.

Spotting an orderly about his size in the corner of the lounge, Solo gestured to him and began to act nervous as the man came towards him. Napoleon started to wring his hands and look around as if he was being followed.

"You look upset. Are you new here? I haven't seen you here in the lounge before. Can I help you with something?" The orderly asked in a non-threatening voice.

Solo stood next to him for a moment before letting the orderly draw him away from the other patients in fear that his behavior may cause an outburst.

"I need help. I'm so confused. I don't know where I am and why I'm here," Napoleon whimpered to the man and allowed him to direct the CEA into an empty hallway.

Just as they got past a locked door labeled "staff bathroom", Solo struck and hit the orderly with a karate chop and caught him before he hit the floor. Quickly he grabbed the man's waist and at pulled the cord where the keys were attached on the orderly's belt and swiftly unlocked the door.

Once in the bathroom, Napoleon pulled out the syringe and gave the orderly a small amount of sedative just to make his escape plan to last a little longer. Then he started to strip the man and search his pocket for anything that could help with his mission.

All he found was a small pocket knife and a couple of dollars. He used the knife to cut off the ID bracelet and threw it into the trash.

"Well, you're not very helpful. Didn't you know you should have a knife on a mental ward?" Solo told the unresponsive orderly when he finished pulling on the man's shoes. "At least the clothes fit, now, to go and find Caitlin and Illya."

Smoothing back his hair with his hands to mentally prepare Solo then opened the door and cautiously walked out as he looked to see where the closest exit was. He softly closed the door to the bathroom and made sure the lock clicked before he tested it.

Satisfied that his plan of escape from this ward was off to a good start, Napoleon passed through the first secured door out of the ward with the orderly's identification badge and had to decide his next move was to find Heaford's office or the hidden ward.

MFU/MFU

Illya Kuryakin lay wide awake, pulling on the tight restraints, and waiting for something to happen after Mother G left him alone. At first, he felt his dull headache go away and then a giddy feeling, almost euphoria of sorts, began fill his body. A dizziness of thoughts and ideas jumped into his mind so quickly that all he could do was laugh out loud in wonderment.

Illya's body began to shake uncontrollably from the surges of adrenaline. If he hadn't been secured to the table he would have fallen off as his body began to jerk violently.

A silly smile touched his lips and the overhead light began to give off colorful hues that vibrated with his rapidly beating heart. He couldn't think clearly when things began to go out of focus.

"Ah, Illya," the voice of Jordan Graff filtered through to his ears, but in a muffled manner. Like talking to someone on an apartment intercom with the half broken speaker. "I see that the medication is taken effect. How are you feeling?"

Kuryakin was too distracted to answer in English. He began to babble in multiple languages and laugh at the faces that encircled him, changing shape and turning different colors. He didn't even feel the pain of the restraints even after they started to cut into his wrists and ankles, causing them to bleed as he continued to fight them.

"I think he is ready for the next step."

Dr Heaford checked Kuryakin's eyes to see how dilated they were and their reaction to his penlight. Satisfied in their lack of constriction, he placed oxygen tubing in the spy's nose and turned on an inhalation gas.

"I'll start with a mixture of 20 percent of Mother's secret blend and oxygen to see how he does."

"What is he saying?" Mother G asked, watching the slim, blond man closely.

"You didn't read his file, Mom?" Jordan rolled his eyes at his mother when she gave him a shrugged, wasn't important to her. "He knows a gazillion different languages, has a doctorate in Quantum Mechanics, and a top spy for UNCLE. He's not your run of the mill subject."

Andrew looked from his brother to his mother and snickered. He had read the files on Kuryakin as well and knew who they were dealing with even if his mother didn't.

"Do you have anything to add, Andrew?" Mother G's eyes flashed to her second man in question to see if he was going to add to her other son's comment. Heaford straightened up and continued to watch the test subject, waiting for the next phase.

"No, Mother," he quietly said and then winked at his brother who brightly smiled. They all became quiet while they waited for Kuryakin to stop shaking after his mother gave Heaford a stern "_no nonsense"_ look that she had mastered so well.

Slowly, Illya's body began to still, his breathing and heartbeat began to slow back to normal. His hearing started to improve and he was able to distract himself from the lights and colors to listen to what Graff had said about him. But as quickly as that ability came, it flew away, making him hysterically laugh out again.

"I think he's ready." Heaford checked Kuryakin's eyes again, nodding for Graff to begin. "Try something basic."

"Illya." Graff stepped closer to the UNCLE agent, leaning close to his left ear.

"Da…Ja…Oui…Si…" Illya's mind still whirled in wonderment of seeing the written words of what everyone said to him splash before his eyes. He chuckled at his own game of how many different ways he knew to say yes.

"I want you to speak in only English. Will you do that for me?" Jordan simply asked.

"Oh, why don't you want to speak German or French like we did at Survival School?" Kuryakin offered and began to sing a lusty drinking song in German and just as easily switch it to French.

"No." Graff laughed at Kuryakin's inhibitions that he never showed, even when they had gotten very drunk one night at the beginning of Survival School where Illya had easily won the drinking contest. That was when they were trying to make the best of their new assigned partnership that had soured in the end. "Mother only knows English and you wouldn't want to be rude to her."

"No, no, forgive me, Madam." Kuryakin shook his head, trying to focus his eyes on Mother G. "I've had too much to drink and need to sleep now."

All the stress on his body and lack of sleep started to drag him down, lessening his ability to resist what they were asking him to do. He was weary and wanted to rest.

"No, not until you tell us about Christina Roth." Graff smiled darkly, beginning his interrogation.

"She's not here. Flew the coop!" Illya laughed at the expression seeing a plane take off that took Lexi away to Survival School in his head with a chicken on it. "Won't be back for a long, long time."

"Where did she go?" Graff asked

"Nope, can't tell, top secret." The Section Two agent shook his head slightly. "All of it a secret between her and me, no one else is allowed to know."

"How long have you known her?" Graff tried to change his train of thought and tactic.

"Most of my life." Illya's silly smile brightened and his mind played a memory from their childhood, before their fathers' had died. It was at a picnic in the country where they were climbing fences and practicing their gymnastics. He laughed out and shouted for Lexi to watch what he can do in Russian.

"Illya, is Christina Russian?" Heaford asked in his other ear.

"No. That was a silly question. Look, the light is glowing again." Kuryakin sighed, his thoughts spun like a top with the overhead light starting to fascinate him again. He was resisting their questions.

"I think we need to increase the gas." Heaford observed. "His heart rate is starting to pick up again. I'll go to thirty percent."

"No." Graff call out to his brother. "I think now is the time to swing into the next phase."

"You're the boss, brother." Heaford said and he turned off the gas, but left the oxygen on to run through the nasal tubing.

Mother G simply nodded, picked the next syringe from her tray, walked over to the struggling Kuryakin, grabbed his IV tubing, and injected a clear liquid into the line. She increased the flow rate of the saline.

Quickly, the euphoria that Kuryakin was feeling began to fade. The smile on his face vanished as furrows across his brows started to deepen. His went still, stiff, and a small tremor ran through his body.

Fear and pain replaced the happy drunkenness he was feeling. The overhead light no longer held his attention, but glared down at him, burning his eyes and face. His heart started to race and he started to breath heavy.

Illya squeezed his eye shut. He was hit in the side with an intense pain that made him groan, pulling on the restraints, wanting to curl up in a ball, but couldn't.

"He's ready." Heaford nodded after he checked Kuryakin's eyes. They were constricted to pinpoints. Illya had to clinch his teeth from screaming out when Heaford flashed the penlight in them.

"We want to know where Christina Roth is. What name is she using? Do you want this pain to go away?" Graff's voice sneered into Kuryakin's ears.

"I…would rather…take this…than tell you where…she is." Illya said through gritted teeth as he tried to slow his breathing to tolerate the pain while trying not to give into them. "Or her other… names… I promised… my father."

"Other names?" Graff looked up at his mother and then to his brother in surprise. They looked back down at the pale, panting, sweating agent.

Mother G stood by Kuryakin's other ear and loudly whispered. "Is she here in New York?"

"No, and you won't be able to find her," The slight man said in a harsh, raspy voice and then screamed out when the intense pain ravaged his body with a muscle spasm.

"Damn." Mother G cursed to herself, crossed her arms and grunted. She was ignoring the seizing agent as she thought out loud. "That's not a lot to go on. It's going to take a longer to find her than I want. I've already wasted a year as it is."

"I think that we need to stop for now," Heaford said casually while watching Kuryakin struggle for breath and his heart rate skyrocketed. "Or he won't be good to anyone."

"Do what you need to do." Mother G said deep in thought, waving nonchalantly at Kuryakin and paced the one side of the room. Heaford grabbed the mask from the anesthesia cart and started to help Kuryakin breath with an ambu bag.

"His airway is obstructed and he's not moving air. Jordan, give that last syringe now!"

Graff jumped up from the other side of the exam table, practically pushed his mother out of the way, grabbed the syringe, and plunged it into Kuryakin's neck, right into his external carotid that was quivering.

After a few tense moments, Kuryakin's airway started to relax. Heaford could see his lips start to pink up and his heart rate slow down.

"How long before we can start again?" Mother G looked seriously at her sons and then at her watch. Both of her sons looked up with awe and nervousness at the same time.

"Mother, you're cold, methodical, and will make one hell of a THRUSH agent." Jordan smiled at her with the same cruel look in his eye. "This is just the beginning for him. One or two more sessions and he will be ours. Andy, when will he be strong enough to have another go around?"

Heaford shrugged, stopped pushing air into Kuryakin's lungs, and removed the oxygen mask, but kept the nose tubing on. "A couple of hours at the most. He's tough and recovery will be quicker. He lasted longer than any other test of our subjects in the final phase without killing them in this first round."

"We'll leave him for now. Give him an hour while I go check on Miss Delaney. I'll start her initial conditioning. Boys, I want Miss Christina Roth. You get him to tell you where in this country or the world she is. I don't care if she's under the name Snow White or one of the Dwarfs, I want her. She is going to be your wife, Andy, by the end of this year. Find her or there will be hell to pay."

Mother G swept out of the room; leaving her sons to look each other in frustration. They knew what hell meant from their mother and then they looked down at Kuryakin who was still struggling to control his breathing.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

"Caitlin."

A soft motherly voice called out to her while she tried to wake up from her dreamless haze, bringing her closer to consciousness, but not quite awake fully aware of her surroundings or who was talking to her.

"Hmm…"

"Caitlin." The voice persisted.

"Yes."

Words and thought finally came together enough for Caitlin to respond to the voice, yet her eyes wouldn't focus and were heavy. Too heavy to open as her body drifted in the clouds above the cushion recliner that she was laying on. Too heavy and drowsy to notice that she was secured at her waist and wrists with an intravenous line dripped into her arm; delivering a special concoction of sedative and hypnotic into her body.

"Do you know where you're at my dear?" The words drifted by.

"No." Caitlin frowned and then smiled as if all her cares were washed away in a single moment. She felt warm, soft, and safe wrapped in fuzzy blankets tucked around her like a cocoon.

"You're at Hillgate Hospital."

"Hillgate! No!" Thoughts of fear rose in her, but were blunted by the medication. "Napoleon…" Caitlin tried to control her thick tongue to call out for him. He would save her. All he had to do was find her body hovering in this room.

"I hate to have to tell you this, but you and your friend were in an accident on the way to see your Uncle Daniel. The cab you were riding in crashed. Mr. Solo is dead and you were hurt."

"Dead, No! Napoleon," Caitlin cried out despite the tranquilizer pulling her into a dark void free of feelings and concerns. "Not possible, I don't believe you. I don't remember…"

"That's because you hit your head. You're lucky to be alive."

"Need to call my friend…Craig Green…my lawyer."

"We have taken care of all that for you my dear. What you need now is rest." Caitlin watched through a gathering fog, but couldn't stop the blurry hands and arms put something into the tubing that hung by her. Her worries began to spin slowly into a soft white light.

"Must…go…" Caitlin struggled to break free from the weight of her own body holding her down. Her were arms and legs too heavy to move on command. She tasted the salty tears that dropped from her glazed over eyes on her lips while trying to swallow down the saliva that filled her mouth, threatening to spill out as drool.

"Rest my darling girl. You need sleep to heal. I will take care of you."

Mother G continued to gently talk to Caitlin and stroke her hair, watching her drift back into a drug-induced twilight. Once she was satisfied that Caitlin was back in a higher level of a suggestive state from an increase medication she'd just given her. The stout, older woman then lowered a large cylinder that looked like an oversized hairdryer to cover Caitlin's head and shoulders and turned it on.

Inside the cylinder were padded speakers that play soothing music and subliminal messages while a view screen rapidly flashed images too quick to see with the conscious mind, but easily read by the subject's subconscious. The rest of the room was a dull, warm, and white to block out external stimulation that could interfere with Mother G's conditioning treatments. Each tailored made to that test subject.

Mother G had spent a good deal of time on Caitlin's treatment plan and watched the beginning of it the make sure pictures of her son, Jordan, would appear frequent enough to implant an image into Caitlin's mind.

The crafty old lady smiled down at the young woman when she stood up to leave and felt very proud of her choice of one of her daughter-in-laws. She looked closely at Caitlin's face and body.

"You'll make a good addition to the family, Hillgate High Society Club, and now unknowingly, THRUSH." Mother G smiled now that one part of her master plan was gong according to plan.

"This first treatment should last about a few hours before it will start to take hold and then it will be played every hour on the hour." Mother G continued to talk to Caitlin even though she couldn't hear her or able to respond.

"Now, it's time to find the other one."

Mother G grinned and thought of what these two women would bring to her and THRUSH. Miss Delaney was part owner of the largest computer intelligence security systems for the major powers in the United Sates and Miss Roth, one of the biggest medical and pharmaceutical collection of companies in the Northern Hemisphere. Eventually, she could be more powerful than THRUSH and have them working for her.

"Now it's time to see what else Mr. Kuryakin can tell us about Christina. Christina? Such a formal name," Mother G spoke to herself. 'I'll think that I'll have her change it to Tina when she goes through her treatments."

Smiling at that last thought, Mother G hummed happily when she went to draw up more of her special drugs courtesy of her third, now dead-husband's life's work to be used on that obstinate blond Russian.

MFU/MFU

Napoleon Solo felt frustrated. He'd have to take his time trying to find out where they were keeping Caitlin and Illya. Once out of the locked ward, his first priority was to find a phone or his communicator to call UNCLE headquarters.

Not knowing initially where Dr. Heaford's office was, he went looking for a phone instead. To his luck, the psych ward he awoken up on was next to the visitor's entrance and the payphones were on the far wall of the big open room. Looking around, he cautiously walked up to the phone and picked up the receiver and dialed zero.

"Operator, I need an outside line," Solo calmly said, causally looking around the visitor's room in more detail and spotted a "You are here" map of the building on the wall by the help desk.

"Yes, sir, please give me the number and who you're calling. I'll dial the number and put you through." A disinterested voice said.

"555-4326 extension 781. I need to call my Uncle Alexander; he needs to pick me up after my shift today."

"Yes, sir," The voice on the other line didn't care what he needed and patched him to his party. "Here you go, sir."

"Ah, my dear nephew, what is it you need this time?" The stern voice of the director said a lot in those few words, knowing that the line wasn't secured.

"Uncle Alex. Are you still able to pick me up here at my new job here at Hillgate Sanitarium? My car broke down and I need a way home."

"And your roommates, how are they getting home from their jobs?"

"Ah, we are all struggling to get back home." Solo said with a slight lift in his voice.

"Understood, nephew, understood." Solo could hear Waverly puffing on his pipe in thought. "I will have one of your cousins over shortly and then we can see to that infernal car of yours."

"Thanks, uncle. My shift ends in an hour."

"See you in visitor parking then."

"Thank you, sir." Solo hung up the phone and walked to the help desk.

As he looked at the map of the building, he saw Trixie and Daniel Delaney walk out of the locked ward he had just come out of. They were walking arm and arm, passing without a second look, and kept walking.

"Hey, Sheila," Trixie waved to the receptionist. "Mr. Delaney and I are going for a walk. We'll be back in about half an hour."

"Sure thing, Trix. It's a beautiful day to walk around the grounds. Enjoy your walk Mr. Delaney." Then the receptionist noticed Napoleon looking at the map. "You're new here. What can I help you find, handsome?"

"Ah, the name is…Jones." Solo had almost forgotten the name on his identification tag pinned to his uniform and he gave the slightly older lady one of his disarming smiles. "And, yes I'm new. I need to find Dr. Heaford's office. I need to deliver a message to his secretary. Can you help me find my way there?"

"Oh, honey, I'll take you anywhere you want to go if you keep smiling at me like that, but unfortunately, I can't leave this desk. So, go down that hallway behind you, take the first right, the second left and continue all the way down to the end. It's the only office in that hallway."

"Thank you very much. It's nice to meet you, Sheila. I'll have to get lost again real soon."

"Anytime, sweetheart."

Sheila smiled and then turned to a visitor who walked up to the desk and greeted them. Solo took that as his cue to walk down the hall and turn down the first right hallway and then the second left. He could see the reception area from a distance and an intersecting hallway about half way down.

He guessed that locked ward he was on was to the right of the Heaford's office. As he traveled down the hall, he looked at the hallway to the left and noticed that it was blank except for a single door. It was the same on the right hand wall of the waiting room just before the nurse's desk that stood in front of the good doctor's office doors. Windows bathed the waiting room with the afternoon light.

To the left must be where the secret ward is, Solo thought, stopping at the intersecting hallway and took a left to look at the simple wood door marked "private". He gently tested the handle and found it locked.

Just as he was about to jiggle the lock, the handle began to twist. Napoleon jumped back into the corner behind the hinges and the door swung open to let out an older, plump nurse. Her dress bulged around her figure and he heard the swishing sound of her nylons covered thighs rub together.

Her feet pounded out her determination like a snare drum. She trotted down the short hallway and took a right without looking back to see if the door finished shutting.

Solo daftly caught the jam of the door before it could completely shut, spun around the door, and stepped into another short hallway when he heard the soft click of the outside lock engaging.

On one side of the hallway was a washroom with a shower. To the other side was a storage room that held a surprise for him; his gun, communicator, and Caitlin's purse. On the closet rod next to the door were their clothes and Illya's.

Two small, shiny object in the trash caught Solo's eyes when he looked around. It was Illya's lock pick and ring. Picking them up, he pocketed them along with his gun and communicator. He turned on the homing device and placed it back into his jacket's front pocket that hung on the pole.

Napoleon quietly and slowly walked to the unexplored door at the end of the small hall and opened it a crack as light streamed in from the bottom and the sides. It was an office befitting a clinical director of the sanitarium.

"So, that was the back entrance to Dr. Heaford's office," Solo quietly said and walked around the empty room, absently stepping on fallen chest pieced that were on the floor until he reached the desk . He stopped and looked at the papers and photos that littered it.

He sifted through the photos of Illya and Lexi at that party, then at the files. It was clear to him what Dr. Heaford and this Mother G were up to; they wanted Lexi and Caitlin's companies for THRUSH and their lives tied to the family.

Voices coming from behind him in the bookshelf caught Napoleon's attention. Quickly, he jumped up and ran to the back entrance and left it opened a crack to see who was behind hidden door number two.

Heaford and Graff walked into the office and the fake bookcase closed behind them. Graff flopped down in the chair behind the desk while Heaford went to the wet bar and poured a couple of drinks.

"Well, round two didn't go as well as I hoped." Graff sighed, took the offered glass, and then looked at Heaford with a jaundiced eye. "Vhat! Ver ist da Vodka Comrade?"

Heaford nearly choked on his drink when he laughed. He sat down at the edge on the desk. "Good one, brother."

"Brother?" Solo said softly, a strip of light ran down his face in the dark hallway.

"I particularly liked the part when he told us what he had promised his father when we got to round three. Very moving, too bad he won't be able to keep that promise either. How did he put it just before he screamed out in agony?"

"Ah yes, that just before his father left to fight the Nazis with her father; old Nicholi sat him down and made Illya promise him on his miserable little stinking life that he would protect "her" and her mother with his whole heart and soul. Failing to save her mother's life when they were growing up was his first true failure."

Napoleon shook his head in deep sorrow. He knew how dedicated Illya was in trying to keep his promises he had made to his beloved father. That's why he wanted to keep Lexi all to himself. She was his heart and soul. His only happiness from the past that was still alive. This revelation only angered him more, because of what those two had done to his partner.

"I just wish I knew if we can believe what he said about the different names this bird has. Other than Christina, the only full name was Janice Smyth and we already know that one, but who are Rachel, Gretchen, Monica, and Alexana? I don't know, but we will have to find out, won't we," Graff said deep in thought.

'Damn!' Solo silently cursed.

"Yeah," Heaford thought out loud about it for a moment. "Do you think that she could really have multiple personalities? His file mentioned that Alexana was his cousin and that she'd recently died. "

"You're the psychiatrist, Andy, you tell me." Graff sighed out loud and leaned back in the chair.

"Depends on what traumas she's suffered through her life and what she is trying to run away from." Heaford shrugged easily. "Don't worry though; we will make her forget all about being Russian and in love with that blue-eyed commie."

"I just wish we knew more about her. I mean, obviously she's smart enough to get Mother's attention, run a corporation without anyone really knowing who she is, where she lives, and be listed only as one of its chemist in one of the pharmaceutical labs under an alias. I wonder what she does for an encore. Why is she so hard to find?" Graff grimaced.

"That, dear brother, is why you are here from California to find out. Start with Alexana Kuryakin and how she died. The big bonus for you is that you get to torture it out of the man who got you kicked out of UNCLE."

"I do admit that it's been a dream come true to get another chance to break Kuryakin. He's a lot stronger than he was then. It's a welcome challenge and then I can really stick it to Napoleon Solo for attempting to keep Caitlin away from us. He heads off to THRUSH Central this evening by the way."

"Our THRUSH stock is rising for us and Mother G." Heaford said gleefully and through their plan. "First, we hand over Solo to keep our employers busy while we get rid of UNCLE when Kuryakin kills Waverly and blows up UNCLE, then we take control of THRUSH, and finally we take over the world."

The two men raised their glasses, clanked them together, and finished the last of their drinks.

After a few moments of Graff and Heaford savoring the taste of their last swallow of scotch, Graff looked around the room in deep concentration and then laughed impishly.

"What?" Heaford looked up, lost in his own thoughts, twirling the last drop of alcohol in the bottom of his glass.

"I was just thinking." Graff smiled at his own merriment dancing in his eyes. "What if Christina Roth was a spy too?"

"Ha! Funny!" Heaford laughed out and then the two eyed each other and curiously thought about it seriously. "You know that would make a lot of sense to why we're having so much trouble to find her and the different names. Have we checked to see if she's an UNCLE agent? Maybe them showing up at the charity event wasn't just a ruse to get us to chase the elusive Miss Roth? "

"No. I'll call THURSH Central right now." Graff stood up and went to a hidden phone in a book on the side of the fake bookshelf. "I can't believe that we've been following a fake ghost. Yes, records, please, UNCLE agent identification department."

"Following you train of thought, Jordan, if we can't find her in UNCLE, maybe she's working for the Motherland? Maybe that's why Kuryakin subconsciously couldn't betray her." Heaford brought his educational expertise to the table.

"Think about it, they grew up together during the war and he had promised his father to take care of her, but how? What we know from THRUSH, CIA, and the FBI is that Kuryakin was orphaned and placed in many government ran schools. I bet that she was right that with him, taking many of the same classes, learning to be a spy from an early age. Why wouldn't she be part of that political machine, working for the Soviet Union here in the United States? That's why she was so easily out of our grasp. She wasn't there to be had as the UNCLE man said."

Heaford smiled at his own cleverness. He picked up a photo of Lexi and studied it more intently. He was now glad that Mother G had picked him to have her as his wife. She would be just as interesting to dissect emotionally as Kuryakin was, but someone he could lust after in the bedroom.

He remembered how Christina smiled and moved in that black dress at the charity event. Images of seeing her lean seductively into Kuryakin brought the doctor closer to wanting Christina even more for his own pleasure, no matter what plans his mother had for this would be female spy.

"Well, that's going to take some time to flush out if we're on the right track." Graff turned back around to Heaford. "How much time before we have another go at our surly Russian?"

"Oh, about twenty minutes." Heaford sighed, looked at his watch, and then rerolled up his shirt cuffs. He repositioned his holstered gun and then went to pour them another drink. "Is the third time the charm? Will you break him?"

"He is a tough bastard! This one had better be the one that does it or he won't live to try to tell us where we can find Miss Roth. No one has lasted to have a fourth round completed on them. I think if we tell him our theory, he'll give in faster; knowing that he's about to betrayed her."

Solo looked up at that last comment, and swore to himself. He had to find out where they had his partner before they could continue again, but how to get around them to the rooms behind them.

MFU/MFU

Illya Kuryakin woke up with a raspy, ragged breath. He still lay restrained on the metal, exam table. He began to shiver as his sweat from the previous torture sessions pooled underneath him. He felt weak and dizzy, the overhead lights glared down at him. Illya knew that he had to get out of this room now before he becomes too weak to stay awake in between Mother G's "treatments".

His arms and legs weighed a ton each when he tested the restraints. The blood and sweat around his wrists had softened the leather slightly and made it slick. Taking a deep breath in, he started to twist his left arm, causing the rub marks and small cuts to bleed more.

Illya started to pant, trying to work past the pain while he pulled his chest as far to the right as possible.

Slowly, as he twisted his wrist while making his hand straight and narrow as possible, scraping his elbow against the padding of the arm support. With one last big rough breath in, Kuryakin pulled his hand out, but not without causing deep gouges on the top of it.

Pulling his left wrist to his chest, Illya had to take a moment to catch his breath and he flexed his arm, stiff from being so immobile so long. After a pause and check of any noise by the door, he felt the edge of the strap that held his chest down and traced it the side of the exam table to search for a release to loosen the strap.

More mobile, Kuryakin leaned over to release his other wrist and pulled out the IV. Sheer exhaustion hit him hard and he was unable to move for a moment.

"When I get out of here, I'm going to sleep for a month." Illya promised and forced himself to continue to move and then he let out a humorless chuckle. "No, two months."

Finally sitting up, Illya ran his hands through his damp hair and then proceeded to remove the rest of the restraints. Swallowing down the dryness his mouth, he swung off the edge the exam table and fell to the floor as his knees buckled. Resting on his knees with his face and arms on the table, he took a few deeper, full breaths before he tried to stand up.

Once on his feet, Illya grabbed the syringes on the counter that were meant for the next round of his interrogation, took the surgical knife off the tray of instruments, and stumble to the door. Quietly, he opened the door and look around. It was a hallway that had a door at each end with two other doors on the same side as his.

Seeing a wheelchair, Illya grabbed it to help support him move down the hall and threw the drugs and knife onto the seat. The biggest problem was to decide which way to go. Looking at the door to the right, it had a door handle that pushed open and closed shut by itself that you can't open from the other side. The door at the left end of the hall had an electronic switch that opened the metal door.

'I'll take the door on the right.' He thought, but first he needed to check on the other rooms to find anything to help him fight his way out. Going to the first door next to his, Illya found it emptied any useful items and then when to the final room.

In the room was a person in an all white room under what Illya thought looked like an enormous marshmallow sitting on top of their shoulders.

"You're wrapped in twenty blankets," Illya blurted out, looking at the saline bag, and then tried to figure out how to lift this contraption off the person's head.

"Miss Delaney!" Illya said in shock that he nearly fell over; barely able to stand himself when he pushed up the sensory perception hood.

Quickly, he clamped off the tubing, pulled the IV from her arm, and started to unwrap the blankets from around her; making Caitlin shiver.

"Come on, Caitlin! Time to wake up," Illya weakly growled and pushed her around until he got her to respond.

"No… I want to sleep. Napoleon is dead. I don't care anymore. Let them do what they want with me…"

"Napoleon dead? Is that what they told you? It's a lie!" At least that's what Illya hoped. "Come on, Caitlin wake up. We need to get out of here now. Before Mother G or her sons get back and put you back into this contraption. Get up and into this wheelchair."

Illya picked up the syringes and knife out of the chair, roughly pulled Caitlin up to stand without falling to the floor as well with the change in balance and his equilibrium, and pushed her into the wheelchair with a single shove.

"Here, hold on to these. Let's get out of here and go find Napoleon. I believe that he owes us a big meal for this and I intend to collect."

"How can you be hungry, when you're barely standing?"

"You'll get to know that I can eat anytime or anywhere," Illya said off-handedly.

"Right, home, James, to UNCLE." Caitlin laughed out with glassy eyes and pointed vaguely to the door after she placed her feet onto the pedals.

"Don't push it! Once you're awake, you'll have to push and I'll ride." Illya mumbled, first opened the door, looked out into the hall, grabbed wheelchair handles, and headed to the door on the right.

To his surprise, Illya and Caitlin found themselves in a main hallway, wondering again which way to go next.

"Do you every get the feeling that you're a mouse in a maze?" Caitlin asked the blond man who was leaning heavily onto the handles of the wheelchair.

"All the time," Illya sighed loudly. It took most of his energy to push the wheel chair in a straight line down the hall. "By the way, act insane if anyone tries to stop us."

"Gee, thanks!"

Caitlin rolled her eyes up at him, shaking her head and looked ahead of them to see where they might be going. They were heading for what looked like a reception area with an information desk half hidden by the side of double wide doors.

There was an older nurse standing at the desk, talking to someone behind the desk that Caitlin could only see an arm of. Behind the nurse stood a hulking orderly, looking right at them with a curious look on his face, not really seeing what he thought he saw. Then he turned to get the plump nurse's attention.

"Whoa!" Illya slowed down the wheelchair. "I don't think we'll go that way. Mother G is standing there with one of her friends who tried to drown me in the shower this morning. Hold on, we're taking the next corner."

Kuryakin grunted while he struggled to turn the wheelchair to the right and pushed it down the hallway. They both saw that there was a door at the end with light and shadows waving on the glass where the sunshine poured in through the trees just outside of it.

"Let's get you out of here and find a safe place to rest, and then we can look for Napoleon when you are more with it. The fresh air will wake us both up."

"Yes." Caitlin agreed; she was feeling a little less dizzy, but the fresh air would help immensely.

Caitlin pushed the door open and they both heard an alarm go off. Not stopping, Illya pushed, half rode, down the steep ramp into what appeared to be a courtyard between the buildings. It looked like a park with its well maintained grass, flower beds, and a central fountain. There was a single wide path of gravel that lead only in circles with no way out.

"Great, another maze," Illya growled out loud, gritting his teeth, and held onto the run away chair's arms for support as they picked up speed down the sidewalk.

MFU/MFU

Solo was deciding whether he should join the party in Heaford's office from his hiding spot when the buzzer sounded on the desk, making the two men jump in surprise and Napoleon hesitate.

"Dr. Heaford here," he punched the button as they leaned over the speaker.

"Is Jordan with you?" Mother G's stiff and formal voice asked, trying to keep her countenance in a public place at the reception area from where she was calling.

"Yes, Mother G," Graff said, straightening up in response to his mother's voice.

"We have a situation. Mr. Delaney and Trixie didn't come back from their walk and I'm going to check on our other patient on this ward. What is it, Frank? I'm busy talking… Who did you see? Where?"

The two men were intently listening to the action on the intercom when an alarm rang out throughout the building.

"What the…" Graff brought his hands up to cover his ears.

"It's the escape alarm. Someone who shouldn't be out of this building is outside," Heaford shouted to his brother to be heard and looked at him with shock to what he was thinking. "Do you think it's our little red friend?"

"It couldn't be! He's tied down and weak as a kitten, but I'll go check."

Graff pushed a button, the sliding door in the fake bookcase opened up, and he ran out into the back hallway with his gun drawn. In his haste to get to the last room, he didn't notice the drops of blood on the floor and slid on them as he tried to stop at the door to open it.

Kuryakin was gone! All that was left were open restraints with one of the wrist one's wet with blood and sweat. He looked for the syringes and they were gone too.

"Damn!" Graff swore out menacingly, but he didn't take too much time to look around and quickly went to check on Miss Delaney. Hoping that she would be there, although, he knew that somehow Kuryakin had taken her with him when he escaped.

"That Russian son of a bitch! I'm going to kill him!" Graff angrily spat out and promised to inflict as much pain as humanly possible on Kuryakin once they found him again. "I know that you can't have gone far and I will find you."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Dr. Heaford grabbed his gun and waited to know what his brother had found out. Wondering if they had more to worry about than Solo escaping his room and would he caught before he could find Delaney or Kuryakin.

Thinking the easiest way out outside by the court yard, Heaford went to the window. Solo couldn't see what he was looking at, because he was out of his line of sight behind the door. Opening it slowly and as quietly as possible Solo walked out into the office to see Heaford smile as he stood in front of the distracted doctor, flexing hand around his gun.

"I got to hand it to you, Mr. Kuryakin. You are very impressive." That was all Heaford said, slowly opening the window, level his gun, and was about to shoot at the half-naked man that was pushing a wheelchair at the courtyard's edge. "I'm not going to hurt you; much…"

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Solo said quietly with his gun now raised and pointed at the good doctor. "I've a better chance in killing you from this range than you do killing my friend down there.

"Throw the gun on the floor, slowly, other there." Solo gestured with his gun, watching the resigned doctor do what he was told. "Now walk away from the window like a good Thrushie..."

Just as Heaford took a few steps away from the window, the bookcase door slid open and a breathless, angry Graff trotted through.

"They're both gone! What! How did you…"

Graff quickly brought up his gun and shot at Solo. In that same moment, Solo turned his gun to the new intruder into the room and fired as well. Pain shot through Solo's right side, making him drop his gun as he fell back. His eyes began to dim when a shadow of movement rushed toward him. His head swam while he tried to clear his mind to what was happening.

Before he could get up from the floor, Heaford jumped, grabbed at him, trying to force Napoleon back on the floor, and held him to the ground when they both struggled to get to Solo's gun that fell a few feet from where they rolled on the floor.

Heaford grabbed at Solo's shoulders and pushed him away to get a finger tip on the gun. Even as his flank burned and made it hard to him to move his right properly, Napoleon rolled into the doctor's motion. They were a tangle of arms and legs as they rolled back and forth.

Out of sheer luck, the last twist to the left, landed the gun in Solo's hands, and he tried to point it at Heaford, but with a jab to his wounded side and two hands grabbing his wrist, the gun was forced towards his own head.

Suddenly, another shot rang out between the two men who stared out at each other in shock and disbelief. Then, Heaford slumped back before he let out his last breath. Solo laid back on the floor panting in pain and shock. Blood from the bullet wound starting to soak through his white uniform and onto the floor.

Slowly, Napoleon brought his left arm up to sit across his abdomen with his gun tightly gripped in his hand. After a few deep breaths, Napoleon's minds cleared to allow him to detangle his legs from Heaford's and sit up. He couldn't tell if the bullet at his side had passed through his body or not as he placed his good hand above the front of his hip to help stop some of the bleeding after he put the smoking gun in the opposite pocket, pulled out the broken communicator, and tossed it onto the floor.

"Where's Graff?"

Napoleon thought to himself and looked to where he seen him last, but he was missing. Slowly, Napoleon got up and staggered to where Graff had been. All that was there on the wall by the hidden door in the bookshelf was evidence of a bullet hole with human blood and tissue dripping from the wall. The blood trail continued on to the floor in a small pool and then under the metal door leading to the hidden back hallway.

Remembering seeing where the button for the secret door was, Napoleon painfully held his gun at his side when he pushed the button with the index finger and turned to be ready, just in case Graff was waiting behind the door.

As the door opened, no one was there, and Solo slowly walked down the short corridor, carefully looking into each secret room as he went by. All three rooms were empty while Napoleon studied the pattern of blood on the floor. It showed that Graff was losing enough to leave a trail that lead to the outer door to the main passageway.

Opening the back door, the blood trail disappeared. Nothing else was seen by agent's weary eyes, who were trying not to spill anymore of his own on the floor while Napoleon weaved back and forth down the hallway. He had to use the wall for support after he put his gun in the uniform pocket.

With the alarm still blaring throughout the building, everything was on lock down and no one in the hallways to confront him when he turned the corner. Seeing the sunlight at the end of a dark intersecting hallway, Napoleon slowly and painfully made his way out of the building through the deserted offices. He knew that if he stopped moving forward, he wouldn't be able to get up again, and forced himself to continue his slow and steady pace toward the door.

MFU/MFU

"Stop right there, Mr. Kuryakin!"

Mother G's voice shot out from behind him and Caitlin as he tried to get them to the other side of the courtyard without being noticed by too many other people. Illya's hopes dropped and he began to shiver even more when he took a chance and quickly looked back without stopping. She was coming up fast and had two huge orderlies with her. He saw her motion to others ahead of him.

While trying to think of an idea fast, Illya turned back around to see two more hulking men on the way to block their path. He leaned forward to speak into Caitlin's ear while she was holding her breath to what might come next.

"Caitlin, give me the scalpel and you'll have to trust me." He told her, stopped the wheelchair and pulled her to stand up. Turning her around in front of him, he stood behind her, grabbed her by the waist and hurriedly started to walk backwards to one of the buildings.

"Stay away from us or she will die!" Illya threatened and put the scalpel close to Caitlin's neck. His hand trembled and he tried not to stumble. His strength was fading even more than when he'd first managed to escape from that restraints.

"Illya, you're not well. Don't do anything foolish. I know that you won't hurt Miss Delaney."

Mother G and the orderlies hesitated when they approach the two. She kept her voice calm and smooth as if trying to reason with a mental ill patient. That's what she wanted those in the courtyard to believe who were standing and watching the action while the alarm continued to blare.

Illya could feel Caitlin struggle with what Mother G was saying to her when a light mist shot out from her nametag. The scalpel flashed her in the eyes and she took a sharp breath in while trying to push his arm away. He didn't have the strength to fight Caitlin off along with Mother G and her goons.

"We are leaving. I know that you don't want her hurt. Back off," Kuryakin hoarsely shouted, knowing that he wasn't getting very far, but he couldn't give up. He watched both groups of thugs close in on him and Caitlin.

Suddenly, another hand from behind grabbed his injured wrist with the knife in it and yanked it back. Another orderly had come up behind him to help the first one. The excoriating pain caused Illya to drop the scalpel; the blond was jerked from his feet and away from Caitlin. He was roughly pushed to the ground by several hands. The weight on his back from the orderly's knee took away what little breath he had left away.

"Caitlin, how are you? I hope that this patient didn't hurt you." Mother G took a hold of the strawberry blonds' shoulders to support her and she steered her back to the wheelchair. The older nurse noticed that there were three syringes on the ground by chair.

"Illya would never hurt me," Caitlin said blankly, allowing Mother G to place her legs on the pedals with older lady crouched down in front of her. "He says Napoleon isn't dead. He's going to help me find him."

"Oh dear, you're confused and Illya used that thought to try to get to you. Let's get you back to bed and rest." Mother G looked her in the eyes to see if she needed another dose from her name tag and took her hands in hers. "I'll personally take care of you. Frank, here, will take you back to your room while I help our Mr. Kuryakin get settled and then I'll be right there."

"But..." Before Caitlin could refuse, the orderly took a hold of the handles to the wheelchair and propelled her back to the building that she and Illya had just left.

"Well." Mother G sighed in frustration, straightened up, waiting for Frank and Caitlin to be well on their way, before she turned to look at the struggling, panting agent, and then down to the syringes on the ground.

She picked the drugs up, carefully weighing them in her hands, and then walked up to where Kuryakin was being held down in the grass, out of the way of the dissipating onlookers. She put her empty hand on her hip while regarding the blond man's back that showed a history of surviving torture and pain.

"You have caused me so much trouble." She leaned over the prone agent smugly with her chest meeting her chin.

"I do try my best." Kuryakin barely squeaked out, fighting for breath with the knee on the small of his back increasing its pressure. It pushed even more air out of his tired, airless lungs.

"Well, no more." Her face went hard and she looked at those holding Kuryakin down. "Hold him still. Clay, go get a stretcher and a straight jacket."

"Yes, ma'am," the burly man nodded after let go of Kuryakin's feet, stood up, and trotted off down the path.

Mother G moved to Illya's left side and looked at his raw wrist. It had started to bleed again when the orderly had grabbed and wrenched it back, tearing the battered skin even further.

"Look what you've done to your poor wrist. Was it really worth it?" She asked with a scolding tone of a medical professional.

Kuryakin didn't respond while he waited for her to tell him what she had planned next. He was too tired to give much of a fight right now, but reasoned that a few moments of rest will help him for the next time he tries to escape.

"I think that we should start to get you ready for round four, although I don't know how you will fare afterwards?" Mother G's tone continued, shaking her head in a mock sympathy as she patted one of his tense shoulders. She didn't want him; she wanted to know where Lexi was. Illya's mind raced while continually being held down, denting the soft grass beneath it.

"No comment this time, my dear?" She asked sweetly.

"Would it matter?" Illya asked in almost resignation to what was to happen next. "I'm prepared to die to keep her safe. Are you prepared to kill me?"

"My, that's a bit over dramatic, don't you think?" Mother G smiled darkly with false humor and she shook her head at the startled looks on the orderlies gave her. "We're here to help you, not hurt you. We're here to take care of you, Mr. Kuryakin."

With that last comment, Illya felt her soft, warm hands on his arm and then the stinging jab of a hypodermic needle in a selected, abused vein. A warm flushing started to run up his arm when he began to shake and flowing colors were vibrating off the tips of the grass blades.

"Now, that's much better. Turn him over, but keep a good hold of him until we that straight jacket and cart. He still might try to get away and the medicine I gave him will make him seize." Mother G ordered the men.

"This man had a history of insanity. Most of these scars are self inflicted. He has also hurt others while he tried to escape treatment, because of his delusions. This man almost killed a little girl once because she got in his way," Mother G convincingly lied to the orderlies and smiled when the look of pity for the now trembling, obvious patient turned to hatred and they became less concerned in how much pressure they used to subdue him.

MFU/MFU

It took all of Napoleon's strength to push open the door to the bright outside by the office wing, when he was met by a gun leveled at him. Squinting his eyes, he tried to focus on who was attached to the gun. His vision dimmed despite the blinding sunshine.

"Mr. Solo," A man asked as he came into view. "Open channel D. We need an ambulance at the east side door. Mr. Solo's been shot!"

The agent's voice was all Solo could concentrate on before his vision slide to the side as did his body when he crumpled to the ground; his hand still on the door handle. Several UNCLE agents surrounded him and helped Napoleon to the ground while they waited for the gurney to round the corner.

Once the medic had got there: placed him on the stretcher; started an intravenous line; and put a mask of oxygen on his face; Solo woke up just enough to see Mr. Waverly. He was looking down at him with his usual concern. The pressure dressing helped stop some of the bleeding from his bullet wound to his right side.

"Sir," Napoleon croaked out through dry lips and tried to remove the oxygen mask only to have his hand slapped away by his boss.

"Rest, Mr. Solo. You're the first one we found," Waverly said simply, looking down at one of his top agents through bushy eyebrows. "Let the medics take care of you and we'll find the others."

"Caitlin…Illya…courtyard," He struggled to say as he winced in pain. "Heaford dead… Graff got away, but… badly wounded."

"Thank you, Mr. Solo, we'll take it from here. Get some rest."

"Yes, sir." Napoleon lay back, knowing that Waverly would take care of Caitlin and then promptly passed out.

"Gentlemen, on to the courtyard," Waverly waved to the rest of the Section Three agents to follow him when an agent came up to him who had been half way down to the courtyard to check the path.

"Sir, we have an orderly here saying he is to take a patient back inside. Away from the action in the courtyard per Mother G's orders and we found another one coming out of the back entrance with a stretcher and a straight jacket going to the courtyard. Again, saying it was Mother G's orders."

"Mother G?" Waverly asked in surprised and then smiled. "I think that we'll take the stretcher with us and take a walk to the courtyard after we have a look at that patient, Mr. Hill."

"Yes, sir."

The agent nodded and waved another agent to bring the orderly named Frank and the patient in the wheelchair over to Mr. Waverly. With a show of relief on his face and a smile, Waverly knew Miss Caitlin Delaney from her picture he had seen a few days ago. The giant orderly nervously looked at the UNCLE agents with guns in their hand and he did what he told.

Caitlin looked around in confusion and held on tight to the armrests of the chair. Her eyes were glassy while she was tried to clear her head. Waverly walked the last few feet to meet her wheelchair and gently took her hand.

"Miss Delaney, we finally meet."

Caitlin looked up at the warm soft smile and pleasant face of Mr. Waverly blankly, not realizing who she was meeting. "Do I know you? I've met so many people lately; I can't keep them all straight. Are you a good guy or a bad one? I'm having trouble determining which is which right now."

"I'm a good guy." Waverly humphed pleasantly. "Mr. Solo and Mr. Kuryakin work for me."

"Napoleon's dead. Killed in the car crash that I got had gotten hit in the head. Illya's not right in the head. He told me to trust him and then there was this knife in his hand…" Caitlin said in gush of information that she herself didn't quite understand.

Mr. Solo dead? No my dear, he's shot, but not dead. You've been misinformed." Waverly squeezed her hand and then patted her shoulder gently before straightened up to talk to an UNCLE agent. "Take her to see Mr. Solo."

"Napoleon alive? This is all so confusing…" Caitlin mumbled, rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands, and then shook her head. "I don't understand…"

"You will, my dear, and soon." Waverly said softly when she passed by him. "She'll need to be checked out by Dr. Thompson as well. Is he on his way, Mr. Wilson?"

"Yes, Sir, George will be here in less than ten minutes."

"Good, let us proceed to meet this Mother G."

Waverly and four Section Three Uncle agents turned down the steep pathway to the courtyard. About half way down one of the gravel paths, they saw a plump nurse in white standing over what appear to be several burly orderlies, holding down a body on the well maintained grassy lawn. The down man was well hidden from the rest of the courtyard to prevent additional on-lookers except those coming from the sides.

"Where is Clay with that stretcher?" Mother G brought the level of her voice up to express her frustration.

"I'm afraid that Clay will not be bringing you a stretcher, my men will be taking care of Mr. Kuryakin from now on," Waverly said with authority, his suspicions were correct. "Mother G I presume or should I say Mrs. Gladys Fairbanks, owner of the Newport High Society Social Club founder and now, one of the newest members of THRUSH?

The older lady's back stiffened as she straightened up to do a full body turn to meet Alexander Waverly, Number One of Section One. He was someone she has known very well from many of her travels. She wasn't surprised to see that the UNCLE agents had their guns drawn and ringed around their leader.

"Alex Waverly, aren't you suppose to be dead or something? What are you, a hundred and twenty now and sadly looking very much your age?"

"It's always a pleasure talking with you too, Gladys." Waverly smiled darkly. "Your husbands' never could quite pull off ruling the world or killing me and I see that now your sons are falling into the same pattern. Dr. Heaford's dead, the other one's gone, but not before we got a shot off, making him an easy target to find, and now you. Captured and taken to prison for your many crimes."

"Andrew's dead?" Gladys' voice tightened ever so slightly as she grimaced. "At least Jordan was smart enough to get away. I'll have to catch up with him later."

"Don't plan on it." Waverly said evenly with a very serious tone. "Now, what have you done to my agent?"

"Oh nothing," Gladys said wistfully, waving her hand carelessly towards Kuryakin. "Just a little gift from my third husband, but he'll need to go through the whole process to get back to normal. Well, almost normal. We haven't had a subject live past the fourth round of treatment yet."

"Gladys, are you still playing your old tricks again? You were never good at bluffing. I know that there is something you're not telling me."

Gladys smiled malevolently, brought her arms up, and crossed them up above her ample chest. Just when she gave Waverly a challenging look, the orderlies holding Kuryakin down were ordered to release him by a couple of UNCLE agents with guns still raised and backed away.

Before the Section Three Agents could assess Kuryakin's condition, he jerked suddenly and twisted in a spasm. He laughed out and threshed his head wildly.

"Question is, Alex." Gladys turned back from looking at Kuryakin to Waverly. "How much is he worth to you?"

"My agents know that they are expendable." Waverly didn't falter and he leveled his look at her. He calmly ignored the practically convulsing agent on the grass laughing and babbling out to no one in particular. The other UNCLE agents struggled to get the disjointed Kuryakin on the stretcher. "They all know that."

"But he's not in this position because of UNCLE, but because his little girlfriend. Love is thicker than UNCLE it seems."

"Yes, it looks that way at first, but this mission was for UNCLE to protect her from you and THRUSH. He is meeting his objective. You'll not get to Miss Roth, because we have her. Your game is up Gladys. You've lost one son, and you'll be arrested. I may be persuaded to offer my help when the time comes if you cooperate."

Waverly and Mother G stared at each other for a few moments and then she sighed in calculated frustration.

"Fine, I'll help your young man. You have to take him back inside and into the treatment room. These two syringes plus a gas mixture will complete the process." Mother G held out the syringes she was holding in her plump hand. "I'm not making any promises for his survival."

"Dr. Thompson." Waverly turned to the doctor. "Please accompany Mrs. Fairbanks to her treatment room with Mr. Kuryakin. See that he is taking care of while he goes through this process to get him back to normal. I still have need of him."

"Yes, sir," Thompson acknowledged as he had just walked up behind Waverly and had missed most of what was going on and he held out his hand for the syringes, walked over to Illya, and checked his eyes.

MFU/MFU

Through a dense fog, Illya started to make out shapes. Then, those shapes started to sharpen to things. He could now make out blurred faces and an oxygen mask hovering in front of him from above. Sounds of beeping and muffled words began to fill his ears with undistinguishable noises that kept him from melting back into a warm dark blackness.

Ever so slowly, things started to come into focus when he felt the mask being placed over his nose and mouth with air being forced into his lungs along with an odd smell of rubber. Illya's jaw was painfully held forward by a strong hand.

Weakly, Illya tried to bat the hand and mask away; irritated to have someone try to wake him up and have this rigid mask on his face. His whole body screamed to be left alone so he could sleep off this weariness.

"Illya, you need to wake up long enough to show us that you're okay." Dr. George Thompson nudged the agent gently on the shoulder when he was repositioning the oxygen mask and relaxing his hand on his chin. He was happy to see his friend try to be his stubborn self as usual by resisting his help to get him to breathe on his own.

"I'm fine! Now let me sleep." Illya tried to sit up and instantly regretting it. His eyes started to roll back and his heart stated to thump in his chest threatening to bust through his bruised ribs. "Oh, I'm not feeling very well…"

"And you shouldn't be," Napoleon chimed in from the corner, sporting a smile and Caitlin on his arm while he nervously watched his partner. "Poor George here had to beat your chest and shock your heart, not once, but twice to get you through that last round of Mother G's special treatment. You're lucky Mr. Waverly likes you enough to keep you around."

"I'm his favorite," Illya sarcastically said and brought one of his hands up to shield his eyes from the bright lights in the room. "I feel fine. I just need to rest a little. How long have I been out and when can I go back to sleep? What happened to Mother G, Dr. Heaford, and Jordan Graff?"

"You've been on the ventilator for two days now and I'll have to keep you awake for a while longer to make sure you can protect your own airway. The weakness will stick around for a week or so, I imagine." George shrugged. "The rest is all up to you, boy-yo."

"Dr. Heaford is dead, Mother G is in our custody, and no one knows where Graff is after I shot him, but I bet it'll be a while before he'll try anything. Trixie was one of the first people that Mother G experimented on and sort of snapped out of it when she saw me and helped get Mr. Delaney out and back here to headquarters. UNCLE owes her a college education and a job." Napoleon tried to fill him in quickly, keeping the information as short and simple as possible.

"How is Caitlin doing?" Illya asked feeling too tired to even uncover his eyes and open them to look towards the direction of Napoleon's voice.

"Oh, I'm fine, Sunshine." Caitlin chimed in, looking from Illya to Solo and gave Napoleon a smile and leaned in closer to him. "I'm going to be right here and make sure things are going to work out for the best. We just need to iron out a few of the details still."

"It's about time someone took charge of the infamous Napoleon Solo." Illya smirked, finally lifting his arm over his eyes high enough to see how they looked at each other while protect them from the overhead lights.

"I don't think that Illya's right in the head, George. Maybe he needs some more of Mother G's special blend?" Napoleon suggested to Thompson to bait his partner.

"I think that you and Caitlin need to say your goodbyes and get some rest; let your side heal." George said to Napoleon with stern merriment and he waved them out of the room.

"We can take a hint." Napoleon joked, stepping up to the bed and gave his friend's shoulder a warm squeeze before he and Caitlin started to leave to room. "Take care and get some sleep, partner. I'll see you in the morning."

"Hmm…" Illya nodded, almost sound asleep again and then smiled darkly. "I will want to hear what rules you will have to follow when you're out on assignment, so I can keep you on the straight and narrow…"

"It's all just a game anyway, right?" Napoleon smiled at the joke between the two partners. He saw a small grin tugged at Illya's lips.

"What are you talking about? What game?" Caitlin raised one of her eyebrows and placed her hands on her hips, making Napoleon chuckle out loud and held up his hands up in self defense.

"I'll tell you all about it when we spend lots of time together, I promise." Napoleon started to back out of the hospital room. "See what you started, you sly Russian! Wait until you're better, I may have to follow my orders I was given on you by a certain someone."

"Not right now, Napoleon, I'm too tired to even care what you can think up for me to endure. You can threaten me later."

"You can count on that. Oh, I left you that snow globe on your nightstand. Bye!" With those last words Napoleon said was in haste, Caitlin grabbing his elbow, starting to pull him away from the door, and down the hallway.

"Bye…" Illya barely got out, sighed, and began to drift into the oblivion once more.

"Illya, I hope you can hear me." George said causally. "A note was left for you in your lab."

"Note?" Illya barely heard the words, let alone understood what George had meant.

"Yes, an odd message really. Not traceable to where it came from," George said, stating his concern in an odd manner.

"You're losing me, George. What was the message?" Illya couldn't help but wonder what he was getting at and grimaced; he wanted to sleep and he promised himself that he would sleep for the next two months and now these thoughts were preventing that.

"It's just that, I don't think that it was translated right. It has only two words in the message."

"George!" Illya pleaded, instantly wishing he hadn't raised his head with his voice as his bruised chest screamed out in protest when his next breath caught in his throat.

"All right, the message said, Logan Strasse." He shrugged his shoulders.

George watched Illya stiffen up and then settle down more comfortably in the bed with a peaceful continence on his face. "What does it mean? Is it from Lexi?"

"Yes, she's scolding me for getting hurt and telling me that she cares for me."

George was one of the few people that knew their history and shared a lab with Lexi.

"Wow, all that in two words?" George was hinting for more of an explanation.

"Logan Street in Munich, Germany is where we came to realize what we had really meant to each other and how each of us had promised our fathers to watch over the other one. Chance put us together, General Boris Kuryakin tried to make us into his killing machines, and Logan Strasse is where we decided that we truly loved one another and vowed to try to be together whenever we could. I was on medical leave, because I had gotten injured during a mission by not trusting my gut feeling"

"Thoughts like that make sleeping for days worthwhile, which is what you will be doing at least for the first few days." George observed simply. "Now I know that you're breathing okay and in your right mind for you, I'll let you get back to your dreams."

"George?" Illya asked before he started to sink back into the warm darkness.

"Yes, Illya?"

"How is Cassidy doing? And the baby?"

George smiled and patted the pale agent softly on the shoulder after he stood up. "She is fine. Any day now. I wish that I could say the same about me. I'm a nervous wreck thinking about her and taking care of you like I promise my partner."

"You're off the hook, George. She made Napoleon promise to look after me too. Go home to your wife. In a few days, I'll come see you and Cassidy once the baby is born and show you the gift Lexi and I have for your family. I promised her that I would take care of you as well while she was gone."

"She really is a piece of work!"

Both men shook their heads in shared enjoyment of knowing their shared female partner. George left Illya to fall back sleep and closed the door.


End file.
